Big Pharma

AZ CEO makes new case for drug partnerships

John Carroll — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:03:48 -0400

BioWorld turned in an interesting feature on David Brennan's speech at BioPartnering Europe, where the buzz was all focused on the global economic crisis and the likely impact it would have on biotech. For Brennan, the CEO of AstraZeneca, the crisis makes it even more important for cash-rich pharma companies like AstraZeneca to do more partnership deals.

"Strong companies don't sit around passively waiting for the storm to pass. For AstraZeneca, strategic partnering is priority," he told the group. He then listed the six reasons why:

1. Combining resources creates more value for both parties.

2. Payers and regulators are demanding more and more, and it takes two to deliver.

3. Partnerships add new skills to your company.

4. Partnerships force companies to focus on key disease areas.

5. Years of experience at partnering has improved the whole process for pharma and biotech companies alike.

6. Partnerships are having a bigger impact up the development and marketing chain.

- for more details, go to the BioWorld article

Fund manager: Pharmas must buy biotechs--or die

John Carroll — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:10:37 -0400

Some of the smartest money on Wall Street is betting that the hot pace of biotech buyouts still has a long way to run. Andrej Hrovat, who runs the RH&Partner Global Life Science Fund, says investors are likely to see a short term correction in pharma as the mergers continue at a frenetic pace right into 2009. And it's not hard to see what's driving M&As, he adds. Biotech companies are in control of the future of medicine, with emerging cures for ailments as opposed to treatments for side effects.

"The companies from the biotech sector are producing drugs which are directly curing the cause and not just the pain," he tells CityWire. "So you cure the real problem and the old, traditional medicine has to disappear. The future is all about biotech companies and conventional pharma companies are buying biotech firms because they have to--otherwise they will die. However, it will be 10 to 20 years before they over take completely."

Hrovat has acquired a taste for big biotech. He lists his favorites as Gilead Sciences, Genzyme, Genentech and Amgen.

- read the report from CityWire

Pharma finds promise, peril in biotech revolution

John Carroll — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:44:37 -0400

The problem with the European pharmaceuticals industry--at least in part--is biotechnology. Or that's what the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations believes. The big trade association says that the slowdown in new drug approvals seen around the world can be directly linked to the biotech revolution, which has revealed a host of new drug targets while making the drug discovery process more complex and costly.

"The increasing information on the genetic basis of disease and the inherent diversity of human biology means that we are discovering new disease targets which push the boundaries of our knowledge and make the development of drugs difficult and costly," EFPIA added in a document quoted by BioWorld. The EFPIA prepared its arguments in response to critics who attribute the slowdown in drug discovery to antitrust activities.

"The biotechnology revolution has been just that, a revolution," said the EFPIA. "It has presented pharmaceutical companies with so many promising targets and opportunities for innovation that identifying the best candidates is costly and results in many blind alleys. Translating new discoveries into marketable products has taken the industry longer than expected."

- read the article from BioWorld