Among the lasting echoes of AstraZeneca's ($AZN) now-cooled M&A gamesmanship with Pfizer ($PFE) is a promise to grow sales a whopping 75% over 10 years, expecting to reach $45 billion by 2023. That sky-high estimate depends largely on the company's pipeline cancer treatments, and this weekend's meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology will shine a light on three drugs AstraZeneca projects to bring in about $12 billion at their peaks.
Before an audience of rivals, investors and oncologists in Chicago, AstraZeneca will disclose early-stage data on MEDI4736, a much-hyped PD-L1 therapy the company believes will top out at $6.5 billion a year. On Monday, the company is expected to divulge results from a study combining '4736 with the immunotherapy tremelimumab, a cancer-fighting cocktail analysts believe could be key to AstraZeneca's fate in the field.
AstraZeneca is also scheduled to discuss AZD9291, a Phase I lung cancer treatment tabbed to peak at $3 billion, and olaparib, a mid-stage ovarian cancer therapy the company values at $2 billion a year.
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| Briggs Morrison--Courtesy of AZ |
It's not hyperbolic to say the success or failure of AstraZeneca's oncology pipeline could decide its future. The company's rebuke of Pfizer's $118 billion quasi-final offer leaned heavily on the potential of the above three drugs, and, as Reuters notes, a clinical slip-up with any of them could rekindle shareholder pressure to re-engage. Under the U.K.'s byzantine takeover regulations, AstraZeneca can strike up another M&A conversation with Pfizer in three months, and the American pharma giant can make a new offer of its own in 6.
As for ASCO, resounding success could boost AstraZeneca's value and discourage a repeat bid from its stateside suitor, while an across-the-board failure could spark an investor revolt and force management back to the deal table.
Briggs Morrison, AstraZeneca's chief medical officer, believes his company and its MedImmune subsidiary have the clinical assets and R&D know-how to follow through on their bosses' rose-colored projections.
"We believe that our rich oncology pipeline has the potential to redefine the way that cancer patients are treated," Morrison said in a pre-ASCO statement. "We continue to deliver on our late stage assets and drive our scientific leadership in oncology, as clearly demonstrated by the recent accelerated development of key assets."
- read the Reuters story
- here's AstraZeneca's release