China -Oppurtunity- Part II

Sometime back I had written a blog about China and south east Asia been favored by Big Pharma for their Research and Development destination and some big pharma’s like Novartis and Novo Nordisk investing heavily on their research collaboration in China and 3M investment in Singapore, Last week some reports stated that Merck Serono (Subsidiary of Merck KgA) is planning to invest Euro 130 Million for its research efforts in China and Roche has already started establishing its research center in Singapore, If we compare Pharma direct investment of China, Singapore and India, we stand no where? What shall be our next step to make India the next Biotech destination?

Novartis.........

Today I was reading an article about Novartis signing a 1Billion dollar deal with incyte for later two late stage cancer molecules. For past several months I have observed that Novartis like the other big giants has formed series of Partnership alliances with many medium and small size companies in cancer therapy segment and now as its largest Research and Development division in Asia id going to start soon in china, we may expect lot of drugs coming out in cancer segment to fill its drying pipeline within 2-3 years 

India Incorporation Updates

India Incorporation is aggressively moving in terms of Pharma Alliances, This month only we have two partnership alliances by India based drug discovery companies. first one is of Bayer crop science and GVK (Hyderabad based drug discovery company) which recently have formed partnership in search of active ingredient for crop protection and the other alliance is between India based drug discovery company Jubilant (Bangalore based) and Alabama university, where in this deal both Jubilant and Alabama university will be equally investing around $40 Million within 10 years span for co development of drugs for cancer therapy... I am waiting for more partnership deals from India Incorporation in the coming quarter Q1-2010 :)

Pfizer on move .......

I have been following Pfizer news before from my college final days way back to 2001...Now a days I have observed that as Big Pharma's pipelines are drying up they have started strengthening their generic arm, In India alone in these 4 years many major players have formed collaboration with generic companies they include GSK alliance with Dr Reddy's, Pfizer licences deal with Auribindo Pharma and Claris..........Pfizer as a company is has not only extending its licensing deals but venturing into acquisition in both pharma and Biopharmaceuticals segment. According to Pfizer’s communication Today, they have stated that they wishes to enter the Japanese regulated generic market by 2011...So now we have many more deals coming up from Pfizer in next quarter for its generic segments....Lets wait and watch :)

Biotech Updates .........

Yesterday after coming from office at morning 3:00 AM started reading some article published with associated press, In the report they mentioned that Biotechnology based and Pharma companies are going for Vaccine research for various therapeutic area, Some companies in Top 10 pharma group are very active in this rat race they include GSK which some 12 years back had just one vaccine marketed in United states and now has around 12 marketed vaccines, and also carrying out some 20 clinical trial for Vaccine in many therapeutic areas. In coming years I feel that GSK will be market leader in this domain.…… Some other companies like Johnson and Johnson and BMS have seriously started venturing into this segment. At the end How can we leave Pfizer, its one of the major reasons to acquire Wyeth was to assimilate Wyeth advance Vaccine research into its own system...None the less we have many established players in this domain they include Merck, Sanofi Aventis and Novartis.

My 100th Blog- Dedicated to Fred...............

Today I am very excited as it is my 100th Intellectual Drivers blog and I am dedicating this blog to Fred Hassan. Over the past 15 years Fred has been associated with many big Pharma deals, In his last assignment till last week he was CEO for Schering-Plough which later merged with Merck this year and was also in board of directors for Avon cosmetics, Now after his exit from Schering he has become the board of directors for Bausch and Lomb and has recently joined PE firm Warburg Pincus and for those of you who don’t know about this VC firm. I would like to mention that this VC firm has been investing heavily on health care sector for many years and has also invested in one very big KPO/BPO- WNS located in Bangalore, Mumbai and Gurgaon (listed in NYSE) which now employs more than 60-70 Analyst for its GSK offshore research centre in Gurgaon...........What ever may be the case. I won’t be surprised to hear in coming days that Fred Hassan has started his own Pharma Company :)

Bio Graveyard - Part II- Update

Sometime back I had written about some 15 companies as mentioned in Fierce pharma who went to bankruptcy and now in just a span of two weeks two companies have filed for bankruptcy one is Altus Pharmaceuticals based in east coast , near Boston with head count of 107 people, the company was thriving on its only growth hormone program and the other one to go down the drain is Iceland based company decode genetics which specialised in genetic studies and had three molecules in different phases of clinical trial. Out of which two were for heart attack and the other one was for arterial thrombosis……. Now Let us see how many spin of are vanishing like this????

BMS- Next company to watch.........

This year till Q3 eight major pharma giants were very active in terms of mergers and acquisition and in licensing deals in Biotechnology products they include GSK, Merck, Johnson and Johnson, Sanofi Aventis, Pfizer, Novartis, Abbott and BMS. Bristol Myers Squibb though had sufficient liquid cash reserves with itself but it did not go for any major billion dollar deal.....On the other hand it has divested some of its drug licences in middle east and today it announced that it is going to sell its stake in Mead Johnson Nutrition company which is into infant food (Last year revenue from this segment- $2.2 Million), BMS is now keen in moving into biotechnology domain with back up fund of around 4 to 6 Billion dollar. Now I am keeping my fingers crossed and waiting for the next big Billion dollar deal to happen by next Quarter :)….may be next billion dollar deal by BMS :)

Big Sharks new trends....

Today night I slept around 9PM-IST and then got up at 12AM- IST to read something......then was checking out NASDAQ stock values over all there was up positive trend but for NASDAQ Biotech there was negative trend......what does it suggest?? Is it that Biotech opportunities are dwindling???.....What ever is the case but there is always a new start-up rolling up with new technology every now and then.....and the recent trend is many major pharma companies are forming alliances with these start-ups for drug discovery and ligand based companies for Mab's development and screening as these big sharks have drastically reduced their research spending to just 17% of their over all yearly spending and have rather started focusing on strategic acquisition to fill their pipeline for next cancer blockbuster therapy :)

India ......will it be next Biotech Hub????????????????

Last week I read some article that Novartis is going to pull over its Analytical Research and Development from India and is shifting its facilities to China......Today at this hour as I am cooking Chilli chicken (Spicy Indian way) for my Sunday feast and listening to Radio Mirchi (India FM Station)...I am just thinking that in this one year there have been major Acquisition and formation of new licensing deals and establishment of major Research and development centres by Top 40 Pharma's in emerging markets like China and South East Asia compared to India.....As we look into the data available till date Novo Nordisk (Insulin -No1 Player), Novartis and others are investing heavily in China and South east Asia .....In India DBT(Government Biotech Agency) and some Big Indian firms are incubating biotech ventures but what all steps are we taking to make India Next Biotech Hub in Asia???...Is it that we will just talk about India Biotech hub every time rather than taking a step forward from our end to make this dream come true.

CRO's .....

During my initial college days I was fascinated by the terms Oracle clinical, SAS, clinical trials........I used to wonder if I could anytime be part of any clinical research organization so to fulfil my goal I did my certificate course in clinical research from Pune University in Jan 2008....I did that course to get an overview of clinical research in India....but did not join any CRO but became a Business development manager of my company........But after finishing that course last year from than on I have been following the trends in clinical trial industry in India .......Some analyst in some papers have recently predicted that in some years CRO business in India will be worth more than $ 50 Billion...........what ever may be the value in coming years but this pharma service industry is growing at the rate of more than 10% annually in India......What I have observed is in just a span of 20 years we have more than 100 big n small CRO's in India.....and the count is increasing day by day :)….Jai Hoo CRO’s

Pfizer........

Pfizer as a company has always fascinated me; while I was doing my B pharmacy summer internship in Organon (India subsidiary of Akzo Nobel) in 2000 that year Pfizer’s name was published in all the news papers as it had then acquired world’s second most giant Warner Lambert. Then after my B Pharmacy completion I was selected as sales representative for Pfizer East zone in India but i quit before my training was going to begin in Mumbai as later i went on to pursue my PG diploma in Bioinformatics but still Pfizer is my fascination....so later on till date I have been following Pfizer's news updates regularly....and what I have observed till date is that Pfizer from early 1950's to this time has been the most active company is merger's and acquisitions and also in giving pink slip's to employees to maintain its liquid cash flow...Yesterday the news was Pfizer from year 2005 to till date has given around 30, 000+ pink slips to its employees but this is not a very new phenomenon with this company as Pfizer after Every Big merger or acquisition has been carrying out this process of giving pink slips for past 40- 50 years.

Oral Insulins.....

Insulin was first derived and used some 87 years ago by Banting and MacLeod who later on were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in the year 1923. Then after 56 years Genentech ( Now part of Roche) one of the Pioneering Biopharmaceutical company of that era developed world’s first Human recombinant insulin whose production rights it later on sold to Eli Lilly in 1982, thus human insulin, or Humulin, becomes first recombinant DNA drug approved by FDA. Year 1985 saw the launch of Insulin pens, then later long acting insulin derivatives and Insulin inhalers....Last week India based Firm Biocon (Leading Biosimilar/Enzyme company) said that It is going to launch its oral insulin pill IN-105 in Indian market by next year and by 2011 worldwide.....Many have tried venturing into oral insulin therapy domain.…..But at this point the question which comes to my mind is will these Oral insulin pills be as effective as regular insulin injections???....Shall these drugs be blockbuster drugs in the coming years??

Market Watch-China-India and South east Asia ...

For the past two years I have observed that Top 30 Pharmaceutical companies are pumping heavily there cash in India, China and South east Asia region, Astra Zeneca has research centre in India for more than 15 years and in china like wise Novartis has one centre in Singapore for Malaria Research and has declared that it is going to pump around 1 Billion in China for establishment of its largest pharmaceutical research centre in Asia. Like wise Bristol Mayer Squibb had signed deal with Biocon last year and the Biopharma research group has started it's function in Bangalore this year and in Gurgaon where I have been working for sometime we have GSK Research centre and Merck clinical report division.....we can now think in the line that within 5 years Asia will be the hottest destination for Pharma and Biopharma research :)

Two vet players to watch...........

Sometime back Pfizer got approval of vaccine candidate for canine and the news is that German major Boehringer Ingelheim has recently acquired Fort Dodge Products from Pfizer. Ingelheim will acquire the Duramune line of vaccines for dogs with rest of the drugs in the line...........and Pfizer is shifting its focus on Animal genetics and bio pharmaceutical development for Animal health

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) ...........

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) therapy had been a major challenge for many pharmaceutical companies and research institutes not only in Unites states but also in India, According to WHO reports around 5 million people are affected world wide. At present steroids and some immunosuppressant are used for first line of treatment and some companies are targeting for protein based products too, Some of the companies working in this segment includes BioMarin and Roche and partner Biogen Idec, last month at one end news was that La Jolla pharmaceutical was forced to liquidate this august as its key lupus drug Riquent which was in Phase III failed in the key trial....and today the good news is that US based Human Genome Sciences (HGS) with is collaborator GSK has successfully developed lupus drug BLISS-76 which in combination with other drug had shown good results in Phase III trial....It is said that BLISS-76 will be first of its kind in this therapy segment.......