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
As April 2018 breezed past with news of Novartis’ US$ 8.7 billion buyout of AveXis, May set the temperatures soaring with one of the largest pharma acquisitions in recent years.
Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical agreed to buy British drugmaker Shire for US$ 62 billion (£45.3 billion) in the biggest pharma M&A deal of the year.
In a month that witnessed extensive deal making, Eli Lilly announced its commitment to spend over US$ 2.2 billion to acquire immuno-oncology companies — ARMO Biosciences and AurKa Pharma, while Genentech signed a deal worth US$ 969 million with Lodo Therapeutics to discover novel molecules with therapeutic potential against multiple disease-related targets of interest to Genentech.
AstraZeneca was also busy last month as it expanded its collaboration with the UK-based Bicycle Therapeutics by signing a wide-ranging deal to develop novel small molecule medicines for respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.
Will Takeda-Shire’s US$ 62 billion deal go through?
Japanese drug maker Takeda Pharmaceutical Limited
clinched Ireland-based Shire for a hefty price tag
of US$ 62 billion (£46 billion).
Together, they have almost
made
it to the league of the 10 largest drug companies.
Takeda’s first non-Japanese CEO, Christophe Weber, envisions the new entity as a global pharmaceutical giant with its roots in Japan, along with becoming a leader in gastroenterology, neuroscience, oncology and rare diseases.
The transaction has
been approved by the boards of both the companies. It is expected to close in
the first half of 2019.
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version available)
Upon closing of the
transaction, Takeda shareholders will own approximately 50 percent of the
combined group.
However, Takeda’s board faces stiff
opposition from a group of shareholders who say the buyout will shrink the value of Takeda’s shares.
The small groupof Takeda shareholders comprising the drug maker’s ex-employees has achieved sizable support in its opposition to the company’s deal.
This 130-member group comprising ex-Takeda employees holds one percent of the drug maker’s shares and needs to secure a third of shareholder votes. The group also includes members of the founding Takeda family which holds about 10 percent of Takeda shares, as reported on Nikkan Yakugyo, a Japanese daily.
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version available)
Reuters reported earlier this week that Takeda “will hold the shareholder meeting later this year or early next year to approve an issue of new stock to help fund the Shire deal, making it a de facto vote on the deal itself.”
This rebel group of shareholders is “working steadily to increase support” for blocking the deal among domestic retail investors and overseas institutional investors who own 25 percent and 35 percent of Takeda shares respectively, Reuters noted.
Last year, this shareholder group had tried preventing the appointment of outgoing Chairman Yasuchika Hasegawa to an advisory position at the company. The proposal stood defeated at the company’s annual general meeting then, since it had gained only 30.5 percent of votes.
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version available)
After discovering
drugs from soil, Lodo rakes in almost US$ 1 billion from Genentech
Lodo Therapeutics Corporation,
a drug discovery and development company focused on identifying bioactive
natural compounds directly from soil bacteria, announced it had formed a strategic drug discovery
collaboration with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group.
The Genentech
collaboration has Lodo receiving an undisclosed upfront payment and becoming
eligible to receive research, development and commercialization milestone
payments of up to US$ 969 million.
In addition, Lodo is
eligible to receive tiered-royalties on sales of certain products resulting
from the collaboration.
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version available)
Two months before the Genentech deal was announced, Lodo published its discovery of a new class of antibiotics called “malacidins” in the journal Nature Microbiology.
Malacidins,
discovered from soil, attack an essential part of the bacterial cell wall in a
unique way compared to other existing calcium-dependent antibiotics. They annihilate several
bacterial diseases that are resistant to most existing antibiotics, including
the superbug MRSA.
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version available)
Experts say this
approach offers fresh hope in the antibiotics arms race and may be able to reduce the time and cost of drug
discovery.
Dr Sean Brady's team at New York’s Rockefeller University — the researcher whose vision inspired the founding of Lodo Therapeutics — has devised a gene sequencing technique that can analyze more than 1,000 soil samples which became the basis for the company’s genome mining platform.
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Eli Lilly strengthens its oncology portfolio as it goes on a buying spree
Eli Lilly announced it was bolstering its immuno-oncology
portfolio by acquiring ARMO BioSciences for US$ 1.6 billion in cash — just a few months after ARMO’s successful IPO debut on Nasdaq.
This US$ 1.6 billion transaction brings to Lilly’s table ARMO’s lead immuno-oncology asset, pegilodecakin, which is being studied
in multiple tumor types.
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version available)
While pegilodecakin is a valuable phase 3 asset, the reason for the billion-dollar price tag is its potential use in combination treatments
with Merck’s Keytruda and BMS’ Opdivo.
The successful combination of pegilodecakin with Keytruda and
Opdivo can potentially expand the blockbuster market for the drugs by turning
non-responders into responders.
ARMO has tested pegilodecakin in combination with both Keytruda and Opdivo, but could
combine it with its own anti-PD-1 antibody in the long term.
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version available)
The biotech bagged US$ 67 million in August to bankroll the pegilodecakin
program, and to move its anti-PD-1 antibody into the clinic.
An Evaluate Pharma report,
published a year ago, examined the explosion in the number of
clinical trials using anti-PD-1 and anti-PD-L1 antibodies combined with other
therapeutic approaches. The report states that the number of combined use
clinical trials had shot up from 215 to 765.
Just four days after the US$ 1.6 billion all-cash
transaction, Lilly announced it is paying US$ 110 million upfront and another US$ 465 million in milestones to buy Montreal-based AurKa Pharma.
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version available)
At the center of this deal is AK-01, an Aurora kinase A inhibitor that Lilly discovered years ago, which was sold off to TVM Capital Life Science in 2016. Aurora A kinase is a master regulator of mitotic progression, and disrupting it can play a role in preventing tumor progression through various pathways. As such it now fits Lilly’s sweet spot and the cancer team wants it back in their pipeline.
Click here to view the major deals in May 2018 (FREE Excel version
available)
AstraZeneca expands collaboration with UK-based Bicycle Therapeutics
Last month, AstraZeneca and Cambridge-based Bicycle
Therapeutics announced they
have expanded their 2016 collaboration to develop a novel class of small
molecule medicines for treating respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic
diseases.
The companies said the
alliance could be worth more than US$ 1 billion for Bicycle, if all planned
programs reach the market.
Bicycle Therapeutics is focused on identifying Bicycles, the company’s proprietary bicyclic
peptides that resemble
injectable antibody drugs. These are essentially small molecules that possibly
can be given as pills.
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version available)
The company states on its website — ‘Bicycles address therapeutic needs unreachable with any other existing modality’. Their small size and exquisite tumor targeting quality delivers rapid tumor penetration and retention while clearance rates and routes can be tuned to minimize exposure of healthy tissue and toxicities.
Our view
While the drug pricing debate continues to rage on in the
United States, Evaluate Pharma recently published its World Drug Forecast
report which predicts that prescription drug sales will grow to US$ 1.2
trillion in 2024 at a compound annual growth rate of 6.4 percent over the next
seven years.
Recently, the Gates Foundation opened its not-for-profit venture and French companies like Servier and Ipsen
announced the launch of their operations in Boston. Being a pharma hub with
small startups, large drug makers, incubator sites and large-biotech focused
research institutes, we expect more deals to take place in Boston over the
coming months, especially post the BIO convention.
PharmaCompass’ compilation of Top Pharma & Biotech Deals — PharmaFlow — is your way of keeping track of all that is happening.
Click here to view the major deals in May 2018 (FREE Excel version available)
Impressions: 2666
The year 2017 was a landmark year for pharmaceutical
industries in the US and Europe, with a sharp increase in the number of new molecular entities (NMEs) being approved in both geographies.
The US Food
and Drug Administration (USFDA) approved 46 NMEs in 2017, the second highest
since 1996 when 53 NMEs were approved. In Europe, the European Medicines Agency
(EMA) approved 35 drugs with a new active substance, up from 27 in 2016.
Sales for most major pharmaceutical
companies continued to grow in 2017. Earnings forecasts for 2018 have been raised due to the recent US tax reform that has
generated investor hopes for accelerated dividend growth and share buyback
plans.
This week, PharmaCompass brings
you a compilation of the top drugs of 2017 by sales revenue.
Click here to Access All the 2017 Data (Excel
version available) for FREE!
Top-sellers: Humira races ahead, despite launch of biosimilars; Enbrel a distant second
There wasn’t any upheaval
at the top of the pharma drug sales charts. AbbVie’s anti-TNF (tumor necrosis factor) giant
Humira (adalimumab), which is approved to treat
psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis, added
almost another US $3 billion to its 2016 sales and posted nearly US $19 billion in revenues.
Last year, AbbVie’s raised expectations for Humira’s earnings to reach US $21 billion in global sales by 2020. The
company believes this drug will continue to be a significant cash contributor
until 2025 and the US $21 billion sales forecast
by 2020 is about US $3 billion higher than its expectation two years ago.
In 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) approved Amgen’s Amjevita (adalimumab-atto) — a biosimilar of Humira. And in 2017, another Humira biosimilar — Boehringer Ingelheim’s Cyltezo
(adalimumab-adbm) — received approval from the FDA and European authorities.
Click here to Access All the 2017 Data (Excel
version available) for FREE!
Enbrel (etanercept),
the longest-used biologic medicine for the treatment of rheumatism around the
world, was the second best-selling drug with US $8.262 billion in 2017 sales.
The sales of the drug were down from US $9.366 billion in
2016 owing to lower selling prices and increased
competition, which in turn hurt demand.
Since it was first approved in the United States in 1998,
Enbrel has been approved in over 100 countries and the drug is promoted by Amgen,
Pfizer
and Takeda
in different geographies.
Novartis’ biosimilar copy of Enbrel, which got approved by the FDA in August
2016 for the treatment of patients with
rheumatoid arthritis (RA), plaque psoriasis, ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and
other diseases is still not on the market because of a patent-protection
challenge from Amgen.
Amgen is arguing in the US federal court
that its drug has patent protection until 2029.
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version available) for FREE!
Fast-growing drugs: Eylea and Revlimid bring
fortunes for Regeneron and Celgene
Regeneron’s
flagship eye treatment, Eylea (aflibercept) which is marketed by Bayer outside the United States, added another US $1 billion in
annual sales last year to record US $8.260 billion in total sales. Eylea net
sales grew 11 percent year-on-year in the US and 19 percent year-over-year
outside the US.
The company believes much of the recent
growth in the US was driven by demographic trends with an aging population as
well as an overall increase in the prevalence of diabetes.
These demographic trends are expected to
continue in the coming years, providing an opportunity for continued growth.
Eylea sales alone contribute 63 percent to Regeneron’s total sales.
Click here to Access All the 2017 Data (Excel
version available) for FREE!
Celgene’s
Revlimid
(lenalidomide)
— a thalidomide derivative introduced in 2004 as an immunomodulatory agent for the treatment of various cancers such as multiple myeloma — brought in an additional US $1.2 billion in 2017 sales and had total revenues of US $8.187 billion.
Revlimid continues to contribute more than 60 percent to the company’s total sales of US $13 billion.
Celgene received a setback this month as the
USFDA refused to consider Celgene’s
application for ozanimod, an experimental
treatment for relapsing multiple sclerosis. The treatment was being seen as a
key to the company’s fortunes as Celgene had
said ozanimod is worth US $4 billion to
US $6
billion a year in peak sales.
Click here to Access All the 2017 Data (Excel
version available) for FREE!
Gilead’s Hepatitis C franchise enters free fall
Gilead Sciences’ blockbuster hepatitis C drugs franchise that includes Sovaldi and Harvoni continue to feel the
competitive heat as they registered US $9.137
billion in 2017 sales, down from US $14.834
billion the previous year.
While reporting 2017 results, Gilead provided guidance for
2018 and said its sales of Hepatitis C drugs could fall
further to US $3.5 billion - US $4 billion. At their peak in 2015, Gilead’s Sovaldi and Harvoni had together generated
US $19.1 billion in sales.
One of the major reasons for this drop is AbbVie’s launch of its new treatment Mavyret
at a deep price discount to the competition. AbbVie
also claims to have the shortest treatment course at eight weeks, compared with
12 weeks or longer for other treatments.
AbbVie reported US $1.274 billion in Hepatitis C drug sales
in 2017, down from US $1.522 billion in 2016.
Click here to Access All the 2017 Data (Excel
version available) for FREE!
Novartis’ Gleevec, Merck’s cardiovascular drugs, GSK’s Advair face generic heat
Novartis’ Gleevec (imatinib), which had at one point become the best-selling drug for Novartis and had brought in US $3.323 billion for the company in 2016, started facing generic competition last year and the anti-cancer drug lost US $1.380 billion in sales to bring in ‘only’ US $1.943 billion last year.
The US patents of Merck’s cardiovascular drugs — Zetia (Ezetimibe)
and Vytorin (Ezetimibe
and Simvastatin) — expired in April 2017. In May 2010, Merck and Glenmark
Pharmaceuticals entered into an agreement that allowed Glenmark to launch
a generic version of Zetia in late 2016. The drugs
that had combined sales of US $3.701
billion in 2016 felt the generic heat in 2017 and the sales were US
$1.606 billion lower at US $2.095
billion.
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version available) for FREE!
GSK’s Advair, which was expected
to encounter generic competition in 2017, continued to breathe easy as the FDA
found deficiencies in the applications of Hikma, Mylan and Sandoz.
All three failed to get the FDA nod for their generic versions of Advair, a drug used in the management of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that generated sales worth US $4.431 billion (£3.130 billion) in 2017.
Top 15 drugs by sales
Here is PharmaCompass’ compilation
of the best-selling drugs of 2017. This is based on information extracted from
annual reports and US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings of major
pharmaceutical companies.
If you would like your own copy of all the information we’ve collected, email us at support@pharmacompass.com and we’ll send you an Excel version.
Click here to access all the 2017 data (Excel
version available) for FREE!
S. No.
Company / Companies
Product Name
Active Ingredient
Main Therapeutic Indication
2017 Revenue in Millions (USD)
1
AbbVie Inc., Eisai
Humira®
Adalimumab
Immunology (Organ Transplant, Arthritis etc.)
18,946
2
Amgen, Pfizer Inc., Takeda
Enbrel®
Etanercept
Immunology (Organ Transplant, Arthritis etc.)
8,262
3
Regeneron, Bayer
Eylea
Aflibercept
Ophthalmology
8,260
4
Celgene
Revlimid
Lenalidomide
Oncology
8,187
5
Roche
MabThera®/Rituxan®
Rituximab
Oncology
7,831
6
Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Mitsubishi Tanabe
Remicade®
Infliximab
Autoimmune Disorders
7,784
7
Roche
Herceptin®
Trastuzumab
Oncology
7,435
8
Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer Inc.
Eliquis®
Apixaban
Cardiovascular Diseases
7,395
9
Roche
Avastin®
Bevacizumab
Oncology
7,089
10
Bayer, Johnson & Johnson
XareltoTM
Rivaroxaban
Cardiovascular Diseases
6,590
11
Bristol Myers Squibb, Ono Pharmaceutical
Opdivo
Nivolumab
Oncology
5,815
12
Sanofi
Lantus
Insulin Glargine
Diabetes
5,731
13
Pfizer Inc.
Prevnar 13/Prevenar 13
Pneumococcal 7-Valent Conjugate
Anti-bacterial
5,601
14
Pfizer Inc., Eisai
Lyrica
Pregabalin
Neurological/Mental Disorders
5,318
15
Amgen, Kyowa Hakko Kirin
Neulasta®
Pegfilgrastim
Blood Disorders
4,553
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the 2017 Data (Excel version available) for FREE!
Impressions: 58407
The year began with a
series of big ticket acquisitions, especially the ones by Sanofi and Celgene. And the trend continued in February.
In fact, the first
two months of 2018 have seen pharma and biotech firms receive more money than what all biotech companies raised in entire 2013.
Here’s a look at some of the deals announced in February 2018. We hope this roundup gives you an insight into the breakthrough technologies and business
trends of tomorrow.
Bristol-Myers Squibb’s US$ 3.6 billion oncology deal with Nektar
Leading the deal
makers in February was Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) which continued to bet big on the
potential of immune-oncology in cancer research by striking a US$ 3.6 billion deal with Nektar Therapeutics.
The multi-billion
dollar partnership deal will give BMS
35 percent of global profits in Nektar’s lead immuno-oncology program — NKTR-214. The collaboration will evaluate the full-potential of NKTR-214 and BMS’ flagship product Opdivo (nivolumab) across numerous tumors. The
collaboration will also establish a broad joint clinical development plan
combining NKTR-214 with Opdivo and
Opdivo with Yervoy (ipilimumab) in more than 20
indications across nine tumors.
Nektar’s NKTR-214 has a unique target in the Interleukin-2 (IL-2) pathway. IL-2 is a protein
that regulates the activities of white blood cells (leukocytes, often
lymphocytes) that are responsible for immunity.
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(FREE Excel version available)
The
drug is designed to bind to the CD122 receptor, one of the three subunits of the IL-2 receptor, which is
expressed by T-cells as an immune response to stimulate the patient's own immune system to fight cancer.
NKTR-214 is designed to grow specific cancer-killing T cells and NK cell
populations in the body that fight cancer.
NKTR-214
stimulates these cancer-killing immune cells in the body by targeting CD122
specific receptors found on the surface of these immune cells, known as CD8+
effector T cells and NK cells.
Gilead announces
US$ 3 billion oncology deal with Sangamo Therapeutics
The second major deal in the oncology space last month was Gilead’s US$ 3 billion deal with Sangamo
Therapeutics. Doubling down on its US$ 11.9 billion acquisition of Kite in
August 2017, Gilead
struck the deal with
Sangamo to access its zinc finger nuclease
(ZFN) technology.
Gilead’s Kite plans to launch next-generation off-the-shelf cell therapies using ZFN’s gene recognition and gene-editing advantages to further strengthen its position in the growing cell therapy space.
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Excel version available)
Following
the discovery of gene-editing technologies like CRISPR/Cas9, pharma giants have been exploring all other gene-editing tools including TALENs and ZFN to target underlying genes of cancers and provide potential treatments that eradicate cancer cells without killing adjacent cells.
Under the terms of the deal, Sangamo will receive US$ 150 million
upfront and is eligible for up to US$ 3.01 billion in future payments tied to
regulatory and other milestones. In return, Sangamo is giving Kite an exclusive license to use
its technology in creating allogeneic and autologous anti-cancer cell therapy
programs.
The license will expand Kite’s toolkit that it can apply to R&D projects and also provide Kite with a competitive advantage as it keeps the ZFN platform out of the hands of other CAR-T therapies like those at Novartis and Juno, which were
recently acquired by Celgene.
Gilead’s US$ 11.9 billion acquisition of Kite Pharma last year was a way to get access to an emerging class of cancer immunotherapies called CAR-T and to offset slowing sales of its hepatitis C medicines.
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Following the Kite
acquisition, four months later, Gilead announced its US$ 567 million acquisition of Cell
Design, a
company developing custom cell engineering technology which is supposed to
augment existing research and development programs it acquired through Kite.
All these major
acquisitions by Gilead in the CAR-T space demonstrate its focus on CAR-T drugs, a new class of cancer therapies that involve genetically modifying a patient’s own immune cells to better recognize and attack cancer.
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Roche picks up
Google-backed Flatiron for US$ 1.9 billion
Pharmaceutical giant Roche announced it was buying Flatiron Health — a firm developing technology for life science, academics and hospitals — for US$ 1.9 billion. The firm was founded by two ex-Google employees — Nat
Turner and Zach Weinberg — and is a cancer-focused start-up.
Roche was already an investor in this New York-based firm and
had a 12 percent stake in the company before
the buyout. Besides Roche, Flatiron’s biggest investors include Alphabet’s GV (formerly Google Ventures).
If we include Roche’s existing 12 percent stake, the total value of Flatiron Health comes to around US$ 2.1 billion. Flatiron employs 25 people with medical degrees and 104 engineers and technology
specialists.
Flatiron
has an electronic health record system that collects data from doctors who are
treating patients with cancer. This data later becomes useful to researchers
and life sciences companies in developing better treatments for cancer.
Flatiron has raised more than US$ 300 million from investors such as Roche and Alphabet.
“As a leading technology company in oncology, Flatiron Health is best positioned to provide the technology and data analytics infrastructure needed not only for Roche, but for oncology research and development efforts across the entire industry,” Roche CEO Daniel O’Day said in a statement.
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The
transaction is expected to close in the first half of this year and will
bolster Roche's oncology portfolio.
Big pharma
continues its deal making activity
While the focus of
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), Gilead and Roche was on cancer, big pharma
companies like AbbVie, Mylan, J&J, AstraZeneca were making deals in February outside
the oncology space.
AbbVie’s deal with Voyager Therapeutics: AbbVie and Voyager Therapeutics launched a US$ 1.2 billion partnership to develop and commercialize gene therapies directed against tau
for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.
In healthy individuals, tau is an abundant protein in the brain that promotes
cellular stability and function. In the diseased brain, altered tau
accumulates, resulting in impaired brain function and neuronal cell loss.
Theravance’s co-development deal with J&J:
Theravance Biopharma
announced it had entered into a global co-development and commercialization agreement with Janssen
Biotech, Inc.,
one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, for inflammatory intestinal diseases, including ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.
Theravance will receive an upfront payment of US$ 100 million and will be
eligible to receive up to an additional US$ 900 million in potential payments, if Janssen chooses to remain in the collaboration following the completion of certain Phase 2 activities of Theravance’s lead candidate — TD-1473.
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Astra buys
antisense drug from Ionis Pharma:
AstraZeneca paid Ionis Pharmaceuticals US$ 30 million in cash for an antisense drug which is designed
to treat a genetically
associated form of kidney disease. Ionis stands to receive up to US$ 300 million in tiered royalties as well as
development and regulatory milestones, the company said.
Mylan-Revance join
hands for Botox biosimilar:
Mylan announced it would pay Revance Therapeutics US$ 25 million
upfront, followed by contingent milestone payments upon achievement of
additional clinical, regulatory and sales targets, plus sales royalties for the
development and commercialization of a proposed biosimilar to
Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA).
Revance Therapeutics
is a biotechnology company developing neuromodulators for treating aesthetic
and underserved therapeutic conditions, including muscle movement disorders and
pain.
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The company’s lead drug candidate — DaxibotulinumtoxinA for injection (RT002) — is currently in development for the treatment of glabellar lines, cervical dystonia and plantar fasciitis, with the potential to becoming the first long-acting neuromodulator.
Strategically, this partnership with Mylan allows Revance to remain
focused on the possible 2020 US launch of their premium, long-acting RT002
neuromodulator, while also benefitting financially from developing a
short-acting biosimilar to Botox.
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Our view
Immuno-oncology, gene-editing and big data continue to hog the limelight in the M&A space. These are the technologies where major investments are being made. And with all major pharmaceutical companies looking at these technologies, one can expect a lot more deals to fructify in the months to come.
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