Market Place
Acquisitions and spin-offs dominated headlines in 2019 and the tone was set very early with Bristol-Myers Squibb acquiring
New Jersey-based cancer drug company Celgene in a US$ 74 billion deal announced on
January 3, 2019. After factoring
in debt, the deal value ballooned to about US$ 95 billion, which according
to data compiled by Refinitiv, made it the largest healthcare deal on
record.
In the summer, AbbVie Inc,
which sells the world’s best-selling drug Humira, announced its acquisition of Allergan Plc, known for Botox and other cosmetic
treatments, for US$ 63 billion. While the companies are still awaiting
regulatory approval for their deal, with US$ 49 billion in combined 2019
revenues, the merged entity would rank amongst the biggest in the industry.
View Our Interactive Dashboard on Top drugs by sales in 2019 (Free Excel Available)
The big five by pharmaceutical sales — Pfizer,
Roche, J&J, Novartis and Merck
Pfizer
continued
to lead companies by pharmaceutical sales by reporting annual 2019 revenues of
US$ 51.8 billion, a decrease of US$ 1.9 billion, or 4 percent, compared to
2018. The decline was primarily attributed to the loss of exclusivity of Lyrica in 2019,
which witnessed its sales drop from US$ 5 billion in 2018 to US$ 3.3 billion in
2019.
In 2018, Pfizer’s then incoming CEO Albert Bourla had mentioned that the company did not see the need for any large-scale M&A activity as Pfizer had “the best pipeline” in its history, which needed the company to focus on deploying its capital to keep its pipeline flowing and execute on its drug launches.
Bourla stayed true to his word and barring the acquisition of Array Biopharma for US$ 11.4 billion and a spin-off to merge Upjohn, Pfizer’s off-patent branded and generic established medicines business with
Mylan, there weren’t any other big ticket deals which were announced.
The
Upjohn-Mylan merged entity will be called Viatris and is expected to have 2020
revenues between US$ 19 and US$ 20 billion
and could outpace Teva to
become the largest generic company in the world, in term of revenues.
Novartis, which had
followed Pfizer with the second largest revenues in the pharmaceutical industry
in 2018, reported its first full year earnings after spinning off its Alcon eye
care devices business division that
had US$ 7.15 billion in 2018 sales.
In 2019,
Novartis slipped two spots in the ranking after reporting total sales of US$
47.4 billion and its CEO Vas Narasimhan continued his deal-making spree by buying New
Jersey-headquartered The Medicines Company (MedCo) for US$ 9.7
billion to acquire a late-stage cholesterol-lowering
therapy named inclisiran.
As Takeda Pharmaceutical Co was
busy in 2019 on working to reduce its debt burden incurred due to its US$ 62
billion purchase of Shire Plc, which was announced in 2018, Novartis also purchased
the eye-disease medicine, Xiidra, from the Japanese drugmaker for US$ 5.3 billion.
Novartis’ management also spent a considerable part of 2019 dealing with data-integrity concerns which emerged from its 2018 buyout of AveXis, the
gene-therapy maker Novartis had acquired for US$ 8.7 billion.
The deal gave Novartis rights to Zolgensma,
a novel treatment intended for children less than two years of age with the
most severe form of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Priced at US$ 2.1 million,
Zolgensma is currently the world’s most expensive drug.
However,
in a shocking announcement, a month after approving the drug, the US Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) issued a press release on
data accuracy issues as the agency was informed by AveXis that
its personnel had manipulated data which
the FDA used to evaluate product comparability and nonclinical (animal)
pharmacology as part of the biologics license application (BLA), which was
submitted and reviewed by the FDA.
With US$
50.0 billion (CHF 48.5 billion) in annual pharmaceutical sales, Swiss drugmaker
Roche came in at number two position in 2019
as its sales grew 11 percent driven by
its multiple sclerosis medicine Ocrevus, haemophilia drug Hemlibra and cancer medicines Tecentriq and Perjeta.
Roche’s newly introduced medicines generated US$ 5.53 billion (CHF 5.4 billion) in growth, helping offset the impact of the competition from biosimilars for its three best-selling drugs MabThera/Rituxan, Herceptin and Avastin.
In late 2019, after months of increased
antitrust scrutiny, Roche completed
its US$ 5.1 billion acquisition of Spark Therapeutics to strengthen its presence in
gene therapy.
Last year, J&J reported almost flat worldwide sales of US$ 82.1 billion. J&J’s pharmaceutical division generated US$ 42.20 billion and its medical devices and consumer health divisions brought in US$ 25.96 billion and US$ 13.89 billion respectively.
Since J&J’s consumer health division sells analgesics, digestive health along with beauty and oral care products, the US$ 5.43 billion in consumer health sales from over-the-counter drugs and women’s health products was only used in our assessment of J&J’s total pharmaceutical revenues. With combined pharmaceutical sales of US$ 47.63 billion, J&J made it to number three on our list.
While the sales of products like Stelara, Darzalex, Imbruvica, Invega Sustenna drove J&J’s pharmaceutical business to grow by 4 percent over 2018, the firm had to contend with generic competition against key revenue contributors Remicade and Zytiga.
US-headquartered Merck, which is known as
MSD (short for Merck Sharp & Dohme) outside the United States and
Canada, is set to significantly move up the rankings next year fueled by its
cancer drug Keytruda, which witnessed a 55
percent increase in sales to US$ 11.1 billion.
Merck reported total revenues of US$ 41.75 billion and also
announced it will spin off its women’s health drugs,
biosimilar drugs and older products to create a new pharmaceutical
company with US$ 6.5 billion in annual revenues.
The firm had anticipated 2020 sales between US$ 48.8 billion and US$ 50.3 billion however this week it announced that the coronavirus pandemic will reduce 2020 sales by more than $2 billion.
View Our Interactive Dashboard on Top drugs by sales in 2019 (Free Excel Available)
Humira holds on to remain world’s best-selling drug
AbbVie’s acquisition of Allergan comes as the firm faces the expiration of patent protection for Humira, which brought in a staggering US$ 19.2 billion in sales last year for
the company. AbbVie has failed to successfully acquire or develop a major new
product to replace the sales generated by its flagship drug.
In 2019, Humira’s US revenues increased 8.6 percent to US$ 14.86 billion while internationally, due
to biosimilar competition, the sales dropped 31.1 percent to US$ 4.30 billion.
Bristol Myers Squibb’s Eliquis, which is also marketed by Pfizer, maintained its number two position
and posted total sales of US$ 12.1 billion, a 23 percent increase over 2018.
While Bristol Myers Squibb’s immunotherapy treatment Opdivo, sold in partnership with Ono in Japan, saw sales increase from US$ 7.57 billion to US$ 8.0 billion, the growth paled in comparison to the US$ 3.9
billion revenue increase of Opdivo’s key immunotherapy competitor Merck’s Keytruda.
Keytruda took the number three spot in drug sales that
previously belonged to Celgene’s Revlimid, which witnessed a sales decline from US$ 9.69 billion to US$ 9.4 billion.
Cancer treatment Imbruvica, which is marketed
by J&J and AbbVie, witnessed a 30 percent increase in sales. With US$ 8.1
billion in 2019 revenues, it took the number five position.
View Our Interactive Dashboard on Top drugs by sales in 2019 (Free Excel Available)
Vaccines – Covid-19 turns competitors into partners
This year has been dominated by the single biggest health emergency in years — the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. As drugs continue to fail to meet expectations, vaccine development has received a lot of attention.
GSK reported the highest vaccine sales of all drugmakers with
total sales of US$ 8.4 billion (GBP 7.16 billion), a significant portion of its
total sales of US$ 41.8 billion (GBP 33.754 billion).
US-based Merck’s vaccine division also reported a significant increase in sales to US$ 8.0 billion and in 2019 received FDA and EU approval to market its Ebola vaccine Ervebo.
This is the first FDA-authorized vaccine against the deadly virus which causes
hemorrhagic fever and spreads from person to person through direct contact with
body fluids.
Pfizer and Sanofi also reported an increase in their vaccine sales to US$ 6.4
billion and US$ 6.2 billion respectively and the Covid-19 pandemic has recently
pushed drugmakers to move faster than ever before and has also converted
competitors into partners.
In a rare move, drug behemoths — Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) —joined hands to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.
The two companies plan to start human trials
in the second half of this year, and if things go right, they will file
for potential approvals by the second half of 2021.
View Our Interactive Dashboard on Top drugs by sales in 2019 (Free Excel Available)
Our view
Covid-19 has brought the world economy to a grinding halt and shifted the global attention to the pharmaceutical industry’s capability to deliver solutions to address this pandemic.
Our compilation shows that vaccines and drugs
for infectious diseases currently form a tiny fraction of the total sales of
pharmaceutical companies and few drugs against infectious diseases rank high on
the sales list.
This could well explain the limited range of
options currently available to fight Covid-19. With the pandemic currently infecting
over 3 million people spread across more than 200 countries, we can safely
conclude that the scenario in 2020 will change substantially. And so should our
compilation of top drugs for the year.
View Our Interactive Dashboard on Top drugs by sales in 2019 (Free Excel Available)
Impressions: 54752
https://www.pharmacompass.com/radio-compass-blog/top-drugs-and-pharmaceutical-companies-of-2019-by-revenues
#PharmaFlow by PHARMACOMPASS
29 Apr 2020
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This week, Phispers brings you news on GSK, whose new CEO is planning a slew of initiatives to make the British drug giant more competitive. This means more challenges for Luke Miels, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot’s former deputy who is joining GSK as head of pharma division. Soriot, on the other hand, put all rumors to rest in a memo to his staff. In other news, Donald Trump unveiled a glass vial project that will create more jobs in America. And Teva announced job cuts in Israel. While Momenta-Sandoz lost a case to Amphastar.
GSK overhaul begins under new CEO; AZ’s Soriot puts (Teva) rumors to rest in a memo
Pascal Soriot, chief
executive of AstraZeneca, put all rumors to rest and told his
staff that he expects to work together with them and see the company succeed. A report in the Israeli media earlier this month had
said Soriot was in talks to join Teva. Last week, PharmaCompass reported
that Soriot had dropped the offer.
Though he did not mention Teva, in a memo, Soriot said: “Together, we are poised to achieve something remarkable and that few thought possible…Nothing can break the momentum you have established, and certainly not rumors.”
Soriot
is reportedly attending the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)
annual meeting in Madrid in September, in case AstraZeneca has its clinical
data on its new immunotherapy medicine ready to present at the event.
Meanwhile, Soriot’s deputy, Luke Miels, is joining GlaxoSmithKline as head of its pharma
division. And if news reports are to be believed, employees are going to need courage to work under the Emma Walmsley,
the new CEO of the British drug giant.
Walmsley is looking for ways to make GSK more competitive. And in order to achieve that, she is pushing some functions and a lot of accountability into GSK’s three divisions. Their leaders will own the successes, as well as any failures.
According
to news reports, GSK is selling its Horlicks brand in the UK, shutting the Slough plant
where the malt drink is made and is abandoning a proposed US$ 457 million (£350 million) biopharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Cumbria.
Walmsley
also wants to improve drug research productivity, and wants GSK to have fewer but potentially more lucrative new drug launches in
the future. GSK is planning on scrapping more than 30 drug development programs and will focus 80
percent of its R&D budget on the top candidates in four therapeutic areas
and potentially exit the rare disease space.
Momenta-Sandoz lose case to Amphastar; AbbVie to
pay US$ 150m in damages
In
the US, Amphastar Pharmaceuticals won a case in a federal court against Momenta
Pharmaceuticals Inc and its partner Novartis AG’s Sandoz unit. The two had sought nearly
US$ 940 million in damages against Amphastar.
Momenta
and Sandoz had filed the lawsuit in 2011 after the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) had approved Amphastar’s generic version of Sanofi’s blockbuster Lovenox, an anticoagulant used to treat and
prevent blood clots.
The
two companies had accused Amphastar of infringing on a patent held by them,
through the production of a generic version of the blood-thinner Lovenox.
In
a statement, Momenta CEO Craig Wheeler said the company was disappointed and was considering its options, including a potential appeal. “We continue to believe in the importance of investing in innovative techniques for bringing products to market and protecting those innovations from unauthorized use,” he said.
Momenta
and Sandoz suffered a major setback earlier this year when Pfizer’s fill/finish manufacturing facility in
McPherson, Kansas, received a warning letter from the USFDA. The compliance
concern had been initially revealed by Momenta in a press statement as the
company, in collaboration with Sandoz, is developing a generic version of Teva’s
long-acting Copaxone® 40mg/mL (glatiramer acetate injection). Sandoz had tied up with Pfizer as its fill/finish manufacturing
partner.
Copaxone generated US$ 4.22 billion in sales last year.
Meanwhile,
a federal jury in Chicago found AbbVie Inc fraudulently misrepresented the risks of its testosterone replacement drug — AndroGel. The jury ordered AbbVie to pay US$ 150 million in punitive
damages.
A
lawsuit had been filed in 2014 against AbbVie by Jesse Mitchell and his wife.
The decision in the Mitchell case is the first in a series of test trials aimed
at helping plaintiffs and manufacturers of AndroGel assess the range of damages
and define a legal strategy and settlement options for such trials.
The jury said AbbVie was not “negligent or strictly liable” for a heart attack Mitchell suffered after taking AndroGel. However, it said AbbVie falsely marketed the drug. And, it did not award Mitchell compensatory damages for his injuries and losses.
Trump unveils glass vial project that is likely to
create 4,000 jobs in the US
Last
week, the US President Donald Trump announced an initiative to manufacture a
new kind of glass for injectable drug vials. Corning Inc is making a US$ 500 million
investment along with pharma giants Merck and Pfizer to manufacture these vials, which are
likely to create nearly 1,000 jobs at facilities in New York and New Jersey and another ‘yet to be announced’ site in southeastern USA.
This initiative was part of Trump's ‘Made in America’ week, during which he showcased America-made products. Trump also defended his administration’s ‘America First’ policies. He was joined by the
CEOs of Corning, Merck and Pfizer.
Trump said the deal could eventually result in a total investment of US$ 4 billion and create around 4,000 jobs. “This initiative will bring a key industry to our shores that for too long has been dominated by foreign countries. We’re moving more and more companies back into the United States,” Trump said.
According
to Trump, the glass is called Valor Glass and is a “substantial improvement” in
quality over existing products. It has superior strength and is more
damage-resistant.
In Israel, Teva pulls out the job axe; Japan’s Mitsubishi Tanabe buys Neuroderm
Teva
Pharmaceutical Industries recently announced that it is beginning negotiation
with the labor groups in Israel. It is expected to cut 300 to 350 workers and managers at production sites in
Histadrut and Ramat Hovav in the coming months.
This move will be yet another step towards Teva’s restructuring and business focus, aimed at bolstering the competitiveness of its sites in Israel.
Post
this announcement, Histadrut called a work dispute, which will permit employees
to strike in 14 days time. Teva currently has 7,000 employees in Israel.
Histradrut spokesman Yaniv Levy said: “We will not accept any unilateral measure in which workers are laid off at Teva. We expect the company’s management to act responsibly, and not to involve Teva’s plants in Israel in a series of conflicts that will escalate labor relations.”
Meanwhile,
Japan's Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma has agreed to buy Israeli drug maker
Neuroderm for US$
1.1 billion in cash as part of a strategy to grow its business in the US.
Mitsubishi Tanabe said it is particularly attracted by Neuroderm’s Parkinson’s disease drug that is in advanced clinical trials in the US and Europe and is likely to be launched in 2019.
A minor molecule twist could be the
solution to cancer that killed Steve Jobs
Last
week, a nuclear medicine targeted at the type of cancer that killed former
Apple Inc co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs got a nod from the European Medicines
Agency (EMA), boosting prospects for its developer — Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA).
The EU drugs regulator said its Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) had recommended the product — Lutathera (lutetium 177 dotatate). This emerging treatment targets gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs), including foregut, midgut, and hindgut neuroendocrine tumors in adults. The drug is likely to get a full approval in the coming two months.
Stefano Buono, chief executive officer of AAA, said
the company was also ready to re-file its application for US marketing approval
with the USFDA this month.
This French biotech company has described the new drug as a “multi-hundred million” dollar opportunity. Lutathera has the potential to transform AAA’s fortunes.
Buono’s AAA, which was spun off from Europe’s physics research centre CERN 15 years ago, had sales from existing diagnostic products of US$ 34.9 million in the first quarter of 2017. Lutathera is unusual in harnessing the same molecule that is already used to diagnose cancer to also deliver treatment.
After Celgene, Cardinal Health pulls out of China due to regulatory concerns
After Celgene
decided to reduce its footprint in China earlier this month, in order to
support only its clinical development and regulatory affairs activities in the
country, this week we heard about US drug distributor Cardinal Health putting its
China business on the block.
As per news reports, state-backed Chinese pharma companies
have evinced interest in a deal that may be worth up to US$ 1.5 billion. Shanghai Pharmaceutical, China Resources Pharmaceutical, and Sinopharm are
among those evincing interest in buying Cardinal Health, one of China’s largest drug distributors.
Ohio-based Cardinal wants to exit the country due to concerns around China's upcoming drug distribution reform, which is likely to slow down its growth. Cardinal has also been diversifying — in April it announced a US$ 6.1 billion deal for Medtronic Plc’s medical supplies units.
It has reportedly hired Lazard as an adviser for the China sale and the first
round of bidding is due later this week.Meanwhile, Celgene is offloading its Chinese operations to
the biopharmaceutical major Beigene. It is also giving Beigene the rights to Abraxane, Revlimid and Vidaza in China. This way, Beigene will assume responsibility for making and selling the approved drugs, along with Celgene’s pipeline prospect CC-122 in China. Celgene had also announced that it would buy a stake in BeiGene to help
develop and commercialize the China-based cancer immunotherapy developer's
treatment for solid tumor cancers, expanding its position in the field of
immuno-oncology. When the deal closes in the third quarter of this year,
Beigene will instantly become a commercial-stage biotech.
Impressions: 2909
https://www.pharmacompass.com/radio-compass-blog/gsk-s-overhaul-begins-under-new-ceo-sandoz-loses-us-940-million-lawsuit
#PharmaFlow by PHARMACOMPASS
27 Jul 2017
Pharmaceutical Whispers (Phispers) this week cover another major heparin scandal emanating from China, GSK may have a new CEO in 2017, the pharma
world reducing dependence on China for antibiotics, regulatory moves to
accelerate drug approvals in the US and China and a lot more. Chinese heparin producer fails European inspection Last week, heparin producer Dongying Tianyong in China failed a European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines (EDQM) inspection. Heparin is a substance widely used as an injectable anticoagulant and as an intermediate. Results obtained from suppliers of crude heparin appeared to be manipulated and the quality system was identified as very weak and deficient, and not in compliance with the EU GMPs. The inspection was conducted in December while the summary report was posted February 25, 2016. Back in
2008, major recalls of heparin were announced by the US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) due to contamination of the raw heparin stock imported
from China, causing 81 deaths. The FDA had also indicated the contamination may
have been deliberate
and had identified Changzhou
SPL, a Chinese subsidiary of Scientific
Protein Laboratories, as the source of the contaminated heparin. The contaminant – oversulfated chondroitin
sulfate – cost US $ 9 a pound compared with US $ 900 a pound for heparin, creating one of the biggest pharmaceutical quality scandals in history. Dongying Tianyong also manufactures Enoxaparin
Sodium, an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) produced from heparin, for which a ‘recall of product’ has been considered and the company’s regulatory filing has been suspended. Is there going to be a repeat of the scrutiny on heparin manufacturers
in China once again? World’s antibiotic supply chain will not rely completely on ChinaIn July 2015, Novartis
announced it is shutting down three of its plants, one of which produced the
antibiotic intermediate 7-ACA (7-aminocephalosporanic acid) – the core chemical structure (building block) for producing a whole host
of cephalosporin antibiotics. At the time, PharmaCompass had expressed concern that
the Novartis’ plant shut down has created an urgency to find alternatives to Chinese APIs, since the global supply of
7-ACA would be dependent on China in view of the announced closure. However, the
global imbalance will not occur any time soon as International Chemical Investors Group (ICIG) announced the acquisition of Novartis’, Frankfurt-Höchst-based site which produces 7-ACA. With this acquisition, CordenPharma
Group (the pharma platform of ICIG)
will become one of the major suppliers of 7-ACA to customers worldwide. Expect accelerated drug approvals in China and
the USThe
China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) said in a statement it would accelerate the approval of drugs. For pharmaceutical firms, the
approval of drugs has been a headache for long and they complain it takes too
long to get drugs to market.The newly appointed FDA commissioner, Dr. Robert Califf, mentioned
that accelerated generic drug approvals will be high on his list of priorities.
In addition, policy leaders in the United States have suggested speedy reviews
of generic drugs that lack competition. This is one of the two specific
actions aimed at reducing generic drug shortages more rapidly and price
gouging. The other action suggested by the policy leaders is to give the FDA
permission to clear a generic product based on an equivalent approval from a
foreign country. Mylan breathes a sigh of relief, Teva’s Epipen launch “significantly delayed”While on the topic of accelerated approvals, Mylan breathed
a sigh of relief as their billion-dollar allergy-reaction injector, Epipen will
not see Teva as a competitor until at least 2017. Teva’s launch has been “significantly
delayed” as the FDA found “major deficiencies” in its application. Epipen contributed 13% to Mylan’s global revenues last year. Libido pill problems
greet Valeant CEO on return from leaveOne of the pharmaceutical industry’s poster boys for high
prescription drug prices – Valeant
Pharmaceuticals’ CEO Michael Pearson – returned to work after a nine-week medical leave owing to pneumonia. Valeant is known to acquire
medicines and then hike the prices.While Valeant’s business practices have been under close scrutiny and its shares are trading at the lowest level in two and a half years, now bad news is emerging about Addyi, the female libido pill Valeant acquired in 2015. A Dutch study found that, Addyi “gives
limited gain in sex” and the benefits were slightly “more
modest than those submitted to the F.D.A. during the approval process”. Not the kind of issue Pearson would have liked to deal with after returning to work post illness. GSK may have a new
CEO in 2017GlaxoSmithKline’s chairman Sir Philip Hampton is believed to have instructed recruiters Egon Zehnder to identify a replacement for GSK CEO, Sir Andrew Witty. Some of the drug giant’s biggest investors have been demanding a split of GSK since they
believe the sum of GSK’s parts is worth more than the current stock market value. It remains to be seen if Witty’s successor will be an internal or an external person. To keep him from leaving, IMS
Health pays Its CEO more than IBM IMS Health Holdings paid
its Chief Executive Officer Ari Bousbib US $ 34.8 million in 2015 to prevent him from leaving to a bigger rival of the data-services firm. In comparison, Accenture paid CEO Pierre Nanterme US $ 15.9 million for 2014. And IBM gave Ginni Rometty US $ 19.3 million. Both Accenture and IBM also provide data services to healthcare clients and have market valuations more than seven times IMS Health’s US $ 8.5 billion. Gilead’s sofosbuvir battles on patents and prices continue in IndiaGilead’s Hepatitis C treatment – Sofosbuvir – has been one of the most spectacular drug launches in pharmaceutical history. Sold as Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) and Harvoni
(combination of sofosbuvir and lepidasvir),
it generated 2015 sales of over US $ 19 billion. However, with the price
in the United States at almost US $ 1,000 per pill and as little as US $ 4.29
per pill in India, Gilead made headlines again as the Indian Patent Office began
hearings to determine whether Gilead Sciences “deserves a
patent” for sofosbuvir.For those interested in this topic, a detailed report on the “Patent Situation of Key Products for the Treatment of Hepatitis C” is available
on
the World Health Organization (WHO) website. Otsuka’s innovative TB drug under fire for high priceOne of the
first new tuberculosis (TB) drugs in decades made by Japanese drug maker Otsuka Pharmaceutical got
slammed this week for a ‘ridiculously high’ price tag. While Otsuka is charging US $ 1,700 for a six-month course of treatment,
delamanid, which is known
commercially as Deltyba, must be taken with other medicines, which make the
complete regimen cost anywhere from US $ 1,000 to US $ 4,500 in developing
countries. Unlike Gilead’s problems with Sofosbuvir, this drug won’t be available in India anytime soon as Otsuka still has not applied for
regulatory approvals. Deal-making round-up: AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Baxalta, Sanofi, AbbVie and Boehringer’s Astra Zeneca’s US $ 4 billion buy of Acerta got endorsed by the award of special “orphan” status to the key drug, acalabrutinib. However, the amount pales in comparison to the US $ 35 billion Pfizer
is expected to avoid
in taxes through its Allergan
merger.The European Medicines Agency had
recommended acalabrutinib as an orphan product for chronic lymphocytic
leukaemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma and
lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma.Cancer deal-making remained in focus as Baxalta
and Precision Biosciences announced a partnership to develop allogeneic
chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapies. The collaboration could
generate up to US $ 1.7 billion for Precision Bioscience. However, another multi-billion
oncology deal is being anticipated between AbbVie and Boehringer
and should be announced soon.While deals are being announced, Sanofi’s divesture of its European generic unit, planned to begin this quarter, may get delayed. France’s largest drug maker needs
more time to determine which assets should be included in the sale. However, it seems like all roads lead to China – AstraZeneca divested rights to two ageing heart drugs for US $ 500
million to China Medical System Holdings. China Medical will pay
AstraZeneca US $ 310 million for a licence to sell Plendil (a
blood pressure pill) in China. It will also pay AstraZeneca US $ 190 million
for the global rights of Imdur (a drug for angina treatment) outside of the US.
Impressions: 4497
https://www.pharmacompass.com/radio-compass-blog/phispers-another-heparin-scandal-in-china-gsk-may-have-a-new-ceo-female-libido-pill-problems
#PharmaFlow by PHARMACOMPASS
03 Mar 2016
