Biocon....

Last month I had been to Bio partnering India conference held in Hyderabad and there while having a tea break conversation A woman in Senior position in Bangalore based pharma company was talking to me about how Kiran went on to establish Biocon with UB group stakes and she had to face a lot of things while establishing Biocon as a entity. I felt that the show was Biocon event.

There in the conference Kiran presented Biocon vision and mission and then there was brief introduction to BMS- Biocon collaboration, BMS collaboration has helped Biocon create world class drug discovery excellence and will help it to further establish collaboration with Pfizer and the rest in Top 20 . As Astra and GSK already have their operations in Asia and Merck is establishing its drug discovery spin of operations in India this year thus these companies might not follow game plan of out sourcing.

Biocon latest move was insulin supply collaboration with world's largest life sciences company Lifetech subsidiary Invitrogen and largest pharma manufacturer Pfizer.

Yesterday Biocon has announced investment in Malaysia based Biotech Company so that later this assets investment will help it to penetrate better in the APAC region.

Requirement of health reform in India

Some years back while I was in college my father had his Bypass surgery, after the surgery the doctors were giving him diuretics in the general section while discharging him after 1week of hospital stay they stopped the diuretics intake, nothing happened then but later after 2days he started complaining about chest pain and difficulty in breathing, we immediately took him to hospital. Doctors said that water filled in his chest, we asked him the reason he said normally this happens after bypass, I was not satisfied by the answer and had been periodically checking what all medicines father was taking and then lately I realized they started giving diuretics as BD dose which was earlier given as OD dose….then I went and cross questioned the Doctor he accepted his mistake….but slight harm was already done….What I don’t understand now every big hospital the doctors see the Big money lying on the table they are not bothered about the humanity aspect which they have taken oath, we in India should have health reform bills we should cover patient safety aspect rather than treating them as Guinea pigs

Biosimilar and Biobetter Opportunity

Today I was listening to Podcast by Michael Kamarck President, Head Merck Bio ventures.......he said that at present Bio better and innovative drug have great future and that Merck in recent years has been keen in Bio better development and but in long run like all the big pharma Merck will venture in Bio similar's .......and already Merck in into two Bio similar product development.

 Later on he discussed about Merck pipeline , it already has Antibody in clinical trials for Solid tumours, two antibodies for Anti inflammatory for Phase 2....and now New Merck has many products in pipeline after last year M&A.........

Listen more at:http://biopharminternational.findpharma.com/biopharm/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=677150

FICCI- ABLE-Indian Biopharma- Update1

Last week on Monday July 12th I got invitation to attend National Biopharma convention organized by FICCI, ABLE in collaboration with government of India and Indian Biopharmaceutical companies.....

I am going to write the issues in Series so this is the first issue related to the points discussed over the conference.

According to Indian Bio pharma industry there were issues majorly related to
-Operational cost of running a bio pharmaceutical manufacturing plant
-Cost of the instruments and media related to biopharmaceutical development and production
-Involvement of more local players related to development and production of instruments, media and other lab requirements for Biopharma industry.
-Mr Sanjiv, VP product development from Cadila emphasized be one window concept which should be developed for regulatory approval
-Speakers also raised issues related to clinical trial development

India Biopharma Proposal

Currently India is a significant player in the global Biopharmaceutical Industry. To enhance its presence the Indian Industry and the Government need to join hands to address key issues and challenges to achieve and maintain a globally competitive and sustainable industry. FICCI has organized a one day national convention to offer platform to all stakeholders to identify areas where Industry needs facilitation and brainstorm with Government on how it can be done effectively. The conference deliberations will be an input to a Strategy paper being developed by Department of Pharmaceuticals for the Biopharma Industry. Key topics that the convention will cover include

· Manufacturing: Increasing Capacities and Efficiencies

·Infrastructure and HRD: Infrastructure for Product Development and Evaluation & Harnessing Indigenous Skills and addressing talent

·Challenges and Opportunities: Complexity in Development and Impact of Cost Constraint

·Regulations for Biopharma: Ensuring patient safety and enabling growth

The issues identified and discussed during this convention will be compiled and submitted to the Government for support and necessary action.

Next thing i wish pharma

Now a days after coming from office I have become addicted to How met you mother Series, last year this time I had finished sex and the city all seasons....thanks to my cousin in LA Manjul....for introducing me to Jimmy choo, Vogue .......and Carrie Bradshaw

Leaving apart my sense of fashion the following news headlines intrigued my brain

v     Sanofi going for $20 Billion deal in Biotechnology deal and like wise Lilly has also announced for more M&A this year

v     Abbott Laboratories is in market to sell its vaccines unit it gained after acquisition of Solvay Pharmaceuticals ($6.2bn)

v     Eli Lilly driving for enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) market and it is going to acquire of US based biotechnology firm Alnara Pharmaceuticals.

v     Some 5 years back Apt it acquired Quintiles pre clinical business and now Aptuit has again acquired GSK R&D unit in Italy....it’s a very good strategic expansion for a CRO which is majorly into preclinical studies.

After this news update what I am still awaiting for is the next biggest Bio similar deal in Indian peninsula

India Inc. Intra nasal H1N1 Vaccine

Last week Saturday Pune based Serum institute of India launched VaxiFlu-S (purified A (H1N1) flu vaccine) indigenous vaccine in New Delhi, This vaccine will be available in the Indian market within next 10 days, and last year Pune had been the epicenter for Swine flu, hope this year it will have enough resources to fight.

For more read the following link

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article487465.ece

India Biogeneric.........for double digit dollar revenue

One of the largest generic manufacturer of India Inc Cipla is planning to launch its own line of Bio similar products, in a press release Cipla's chairman Yusuf Hamied said that he plans to invest in companies in India and Hong Kong who will be able to produce so-called monoclonal antibodies. The technology will enable Mumbai-based Cipla to have access to products modelled bio equivalence to Roche’s Avastin, Herceptin cancer drugs and Amgen’s rheumatoid arthritis treatment Enbrel.

PS: Cipla is the largest supplier of HIV drugs:)

Link:http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-16/cipla-targets-19-billion-a-year-roche-amgen-drugs-update2-.html

Europe's Big Daddies for Active M&A

Last year after the present Sanofi's new CEO joined the board from GSK, Sanofi has been aggressively into Mergers and Acquisitions, now another big giant to look for is Bayer for long time Bayer has been into active patent portfolio management and out licensing but as we have new CEO on board we have many mergers and acquisition awaiting from Bayer's end.
....................................................................................
Yesterday I was reading some analyst report in which they have mentioned about some companies for which venture capitalists have high hopes, they include the following

-RXi Pharmaceuticals Corporation (Nasdaq: RXII): RXi's proprietary sd-rxRNA molecules has a unique 'self delivery' property.
-Northwest Bio therapeutics (OTC BB: NWBO.OB): Northwest Bio therapeutics' vaccine to combat brain cancer
-Dendreon Corporation's (NASDAQ: DNDN): Dendreon announced recently that their drug Provenge for treatment for prostate cancer has been approved by FDA.

Sanofi deal Update -2010-Q2

In my last article I had mentioned about Sanofi Aventis generic market penetration in emerging markets, today morning the news was that Sanofi is interested in venturing into Ophthalmology domain and in the news it was also mentioned that last year as it had closed 33 deals it is going to close the same number of deals by this year end......An interesting observation is that last year Abbott was the company which had invested heavily in Ophthalmology segment but this year with Sanofi eyeing this therapeutic landscape we will have tough neck to neck competition between the two giants in Ophthalmology therapy landscape in the coming decade.

Read more in http://www.forexyard.com/en/news/Sanofi-RD-sets-sight-on-eye-diseases-2010-06-03T081726Z-INTERVIEW

Sanofi Aventis-Update

Last year in my blog I had mentioned something about Sanofi aventis penetration into emerging markets which include Latin American countries, India and China. For instance in Latin America it went into Merger and Acquisition of generic, India in similar way for acquisition of Shanta Biotech Hyderabad based Bio similar company and in China it went into to open its R&D centre for Biologics and generic production and now last week in a press release it was mentioned that Sanofi Aventis in going to invest around 5 Billion Yen in Japanese generic company Nichi- Iko Pharmaceutical.........now I guess next thing is that the company will try to strategize its marketing in South Asia.................. 

This week Update

Some 6-7 years back I had started working in the field of Molecular Biology and Fermentas and Geneart are the acronyms in our field.....This week there were following updates.............

- Life tech has purchased Germany based Gene-art for 47M USD, Gene-art has been into synthetic DNA, duplexes and oligos for a long time and with this acquisition Life tech has acquired capabilities from initial DNA synthesis to Bio-pharmaceutical pilot scale production.

- Thermo Fischer on the other hand into Biotechnology based instruments and storage and now it has acquired Fermentas (one of the market leaders in Restriction Digestion Technology, so now Novozyme and Danisco, New england Biolabs has touch competition ahead.

Now i am awaiting news from Qiagen as it has not done any major deals this quarter compared to last year 2009

Last week India Pharma Review

Till yesterday I was mad at finishing our final deliverable for a short term Client project and now as had a good 8 hrs sleep after long time so I am back to my old habit of doing my favourite thing……Writing my Blog………..Last week there was a major deal in the Indian subcontinent Abbott acquisition of Nicholas , earlier there were talks of GSK’s interest in acquiring Nicholas which never came through and GSk then went into getting stakes in Dr Reddy’s , Now I am awaiting one more million dollar deal in generic market in the Indian Subcontinent from Bristol Mayer Squibb, Merck and Pfizer ..As after this deal Abbott has got strong foothold in India and its time for Big daddies to gear up for next mega deal.

America's Most Popular drugs

Today after long time got a chance to write something for my Blog as there was a short term project going on and the file was delivered .....so now i am relaxing a bit ...............Last week and week end were quite hectic and now a days i am pursuing my passion for dance drama's .............Now about the pharma industry there were many small mergers and acquisitions in this fortnight but i am still waiting for the big players like Roche, BI, Bayer and Pfizer bigger M&A...........When i previewed the list and compared the Indian scenario i did not find a huge difference.

Today there was a update for America's Most Popular Drugs in IMS report. Following drugs are included in the list

Drug Name

Indication

Prescriptions 2009

Hydrocodone/ acetaminophen

Pain killer

128.2 M

Simvastatin

High cholesterol

83 M

Lisinopril

High Blood Pressure

81.3 M

Levothyroxine sodium

Thyroid disorders

66 M

Azithromycin

Antibiotics

53.8 M

Metformin

Diabetes

52 M

Lipitor

High cholesterol

51.5 M

Amlodipine

High blood pressure

50.9 M

Amoxicillin

Antibiotics

49.2 M

Hydrochlorothiazide

High Blood Pressure

47.1 M

Omeprazole

Heartburn

45.4 M

Alprazolam

Anxiety

44.4 M

Furosemide

High blood pressure

42.8 M

Metoprolol tartrate

Angina High blood pressure

40.5 M

Jaii Hooo

Yesterday Economic times headline "Dr Reddy's, Elder Pharma and Mankind Pharma to hire 3,000 people".....According to the sources

• Dr Reddy’s, Elder Pharma and Mankind Pharma each plan to hire 1,000 people in their marketing and sales force this year, Prabir Jha, global chief of HR at Dr Reddy’s, says the company had recruited 2,300 people last year.
• Lupin to add  800.
• GSK India had said it would hire about 300 people this year.......
• Novartis has also started hiring for its CI captive office in Hyderabad and Bristol Mayer Squibb for its Mumbai corporate office.

  According to the sources Indian local drug market is growing at over 17%. “So at even 15% growth, a Rs 10,000 crore market will be created next year...........

Monthly Update

This month has been quite hectic month for me, at the initial week of the month I had been to Kumbh Mela (A festival which is celebrated after every 12 years in Hindu religion) and then had been to Kolkata (City of Joy) for my birthday and Bengali happy new year celebrations, then came back and had to finish my client project and now I have got time to blog something and I am feeling good about it.



This month there were many updates Abbott billion dollar acquisition and day before yesterday the news was Charles river laboratories is planning to acquire Wuxiapptech, this collaboration will help Charles river penetrate more into the emerging markets thus helping it to develop capabilities in both preclinical and clinical stage services for varied industries which will range from diagnostics, markers, devices, biologics, chemicals and small molecules…..and sometime back while I was analyzing the list of fast developing CRO’s in Asia, Wuxi was contending in the Top 3 slot…………

Pharmaceitical M&A Report- Last 10 years

Today morning was reading a report on Mergers and Acquisitions and in the report it was mentioned that during these last 10 years there were 1, 717 M&A in pharma sector with the disclosed amount of $295 Billion and the biggest players includes

Roche - $46.8 Billion acquisition of Genentech

Astra Zeneca- $15.2 Billion deal for Med Immune

And also included in the list were GlaxoSmithKline, Amgen, Eli lily and company, Genzyme Corporation but the big fish which was missing from the list was our old patron in M&A Pfizer which last year went for the highest M&A deal ever.

Among Top 25 Biotechnology M&A four companies announced multiple acquisitions which includes Glaxo Smith Kline, Amgen Inc., Eli Lilly & Co and Genzyme Corporation and the report stated that most of the acquisitions were from publically traded sellers and buyers

Biotechnology Mergers and Acquisitions, 2000 to 2009

Year Dollars Committed Number Of Deals

2009 $47,523,349,040 193

2008 $93,879,257,347 148

2007 $42,105,127,700 145

2006 $36,407,170,500 115

2005 $23,196,902,050 113

2004 $6,764,873,000 96

2003 $16,681,231,200 128

2002 $3,274,727,708 96

2001 $20,150,840,000 85

2000 $5,076,797,094 52

Totals $295,060,275,639 1,171

In this report they mentioned that only about 18% of the biotechnology companies which were targeted in mergers and acquisitions announced in the span of 10 years ended December 31, 2009 were disclosing their revenues at the time of the M&A announcements.

Out of the top 25 largest biotechnology M&A announced during the 10-year period ended December 31, 2009 most of them were United States-based concern and some were European companies. In Year 2008 -2009 major M&A activity happened in United States preceded by Europe, Canada and Japan

This report also gave information related to Top states in United states with largest M&A activity they include California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Washington and Texas.

Outside the U.S., the countries included in the list were Switzerland, Germany, England, Netherlands, Japan, Canada, France, Australia and Denmark.

Seller side point of view it gave additional information about various states with United states having highest number of M&A they include California, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Texas.

Link:http://www.kerentech.com/?p=4504

Biosimilar Market

Some days back I received an email from some lady and she asked me some question related to biosimilars so I thought of jotting them down in my blog

I. What is some of the current challenges you are experiencing in your industry?
•Manufacturing part: Large investment required due to expensive and sensitive manufacturing process with difficulty in reproducibility of results.
•Huge clinical trial development cost
•Regulatory process till now not clearly defined in regulatory market Europe (EMEA) and United states (FDA)

II. What are the top 3 things that should improve?
According to me the following things should improve for dissimilar in Indian scenario they include
•Better clinical studies prioritization and development with expertise in filing in regulated market
•Comprehensive competitive intelligence or due diligence for the product portfolio with establishment of state of the art manufacturing process
•Consistent portfolio strategy with effective branding and marketing skills.

III.What is upcoming future opportunities that you see in the field of biosimilars?
In accordance to indian scenario the oppurtunities associated with biosimilars include
•Cost saving
•Higher margins and better profitability structure as blockbuster drugs are coming off patent.

PS: The 12 years exclusivity for biopharmaceutical drug in United States I don’t see a good market potential of bio similar in United States in the coming decade as compared to European bio similar approvals.

India Way

Last week I was reading an article “India way” in Harvard business review, as per the book western companies the primary concern is to satisfy their share holder’s need which is very true and the same I feel this also applies to majority of the companies operating in the Indian service sector which are just focusing on short term revenues.

The best thing about the article is it has made me think about the core Indian company’s value proposition and how Indian companies have been different from the capitalist America. Professor Peter of Wharton, your article has helped me in evaluating the attributes required for starting and then sustaining a company as next generation entrepreneur :)

India Inc Update

Today after coming from office I was reading some paper on Harvard business review the India way, there they have mentioned about Dr Reddy's.....good article indeed and then was checking my regular updates in Gmail account and then one news caught my attention...Most of the generic Indian pharma's till date have been doing merger and acquisition in European and emerging markets such as Latin America mostly for research colloboration or buying the whole manufacturing unit as whole, but our own Dr Reddy's has established its own mPEG plant in Mexico thus now it will able to supply in cheaper rates raw materials to Northh America with huge profit margin, I feel this time Reddy's has taken a very right approach :)

Made in China...........

I have never been to Wal-Mart but what ever I have heard from my family members and friends is that in Wal-Mart stores what you get in cheap and affordable price is Made in China stuff. After some years time will come that our daily drugs will be made in china as Chinese government recently announced that it would like to be No 1 in terms of Biotechnology and Pharma research and development by year 2015 and today I read some IMS report stating that China is going to be third largest drug market by year 2011 and thus will contribute to around 48% to global pharmaceutical growth

last Week Updates.........................

Last week was a very busy week for me with lot of good work in terms of my close pharma industry interaction so was not able to give me time to my favorite past time intellectual driver.......Last week there were follwing updates........

1.Ratiopharm (With Market cap of more than  approximate $ 2-2.5 Billion) - Europe one of the largest generic maker is up for sale, three contendors are there for this deal, one is the largest pharma (Pfizer) and the other two are big names in the generic scenario are Teva (No1 -generic maker) and Activis (Iceland largest generic maker)

2. Merck and Sanofi aventis are going to expand big time in the animal health segment to attain the market leader position.

3. Abbott labs which last year had been expanding its opthalmology portfoilio

Pharma Updates.........

Last week was a very busy week for me with lot of good work in terms of my close pharma industry interaction so was not able to give me time to my favourite past time intellectual driver.......Last week there were following updates........

1.Ratiopharm (With Market cap of more than approximate $ 2-2.5 Billion) - Europe one of the largest generic maker is up for sale, three contenders are there for this deal, one is the largest pharma (Pfizer) and the other two are big names in the generic scenario are Teva (No1 -generic maker) and Activis (Iceland largest generic maker)

2. Merck and Sanofi aventis are going to expand big time in the animal health segment to attain the market leader position.

3. Abbott labs which last year had been expanding its ophthalmology portfolio by rapid M&A activity is this point of time expanding its oncology portfolio by acquiring California based Facet Lab for $722 million.
More updates coming this week :)

H1N1 India Inc Update

According to The Medguru news published on Feb 20, 2010. It reported that over the past six months 1, 330 people have been affected by H1N1 in India, according to the report Maharashtra has the highest death toll followed by Rajasthan then Karnataka and Delhi, total number of positives cases reported till date is 29, 452 individuals……..but now we have good news from Pune based Serum institute of India as report published in DNA India, Feb 14, 2010 , the company spokesperson stated that they had started vaccine development last year in the month of April and have completed phase I trial for H1N1 nasal drop, thus they are going to launch this nasal drop by this April, the company also stated that they are expecting to produce around 1.2 MIL dose of inject-able vaccines per month from this year Q2-Q3.

My review on Business Branding

Last year was good I did work on competitive intelligence, business analytics and my boss just asked me to work on one big sale's project, I was not sure about lead generation and all, first 3 days were the worst but after that there was no turning point. I love doing primary calling if required.....and in Business development it has become my primary bread earner. leave this apart Now adays I have seen one more trend coming up, companies with some innovation have started publishing in Harvard Business Review about how they have become innovative company, I don’t want to take the name of the companies but I have been observing this trend for quite long. there was one book I was reading last year Built k to last where the author's wrote about companies like Pfizer, Merck, Johnson and Johnson and so on, for Pfizer they mentioned the fact about its winning attitude but what ever was spoken about Merck and Johnson and Johnson I think things have changed a lot in these last 50 years. Making case studies like this will help in branding but we are still missing on something isn't it?

Merck KgA.................

Merck KgA was formed more than 100 years ago and from then it was known for its chemical manufacturing and then some 50 years back it started diversifying and after its investment in Biopharmaceuticals with Merck Serono in year 2006 for $11 Billion, today it has made an offer of $7.2 Billion for Millipore, earlier the speculation was  that thermo had made offer of around $5 Billion for millipore.......what I had assumed was companies like Lifetech , Qiagen, thermo type will be interested in this merger...with this acquisition now we have many more M&A to watch from  companies like Merck (Large Pharma) in these coming 2 years.

TOP 20 Biotechnology VC Deals

Today Fierce Biotechnology Published report on TOP 20 VC deals. Following were included

1. Clovis Oncology - $146.30 million
2. Zogenix - $70.96 million
3. BioVex Group - $70 million
4. Pacific Biosciences - $68 million
5. Hyperion Therapeutics - $68 million
6. Anacor Pharmaceuticals $50 million
6. Proteon Therapeutics $50 million
6. PTC Therapeutics $50 million
9. Virdante Pharmaceuticals - $47.75 million
10. Cempra Pharmaceuticals - $46 million
11. Complete Genomics - $45 million
11. SFJ Pharmaceuticals - $45 million
13. Amyris Biotechnologies - $41.75 million
14. Kolltan Pharmaceuticals - $40.50 million
15. Ironwood Pharmaceuticals - $40 million
15. Epizyme - $40 million
15. Adamas Pharmaceuticals - $40 million
15. Aileron Therapeutics - $40 million
15. Regado Biosciences - $40 million
20. GlycoMimetics - $38.98 million

Major Venture capital funding was in cancer, then there were many inflammation, malaria, neural disorders and blood disorders and two of the venture funding out of 20 were for gene sequencing.

Read more: http://www.fiercebiotech.com/special-reports/top-20-biotech-venture-capital-deals-2009?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal#ixzz0gaW1X3fa

Kooky Inventions.....................

Today after such a long time got opportunity to read book That Calcutta....Those Bongs .......right now just finished first chapter and then in meanwhile was reading some industry updates then this article in Forbes about kooky invention caught my attention, Kooky means crazy and in this article they have described around 15 crazy things created.

For more information:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/22/kookiest-inventions-patent-entrepreneurs-technology-patent_slide_4.html

Thermo bids for Millipore

Today both Bloomberg and Reuter's reported that Thermo (with current market cap of around $20Billion) has already made an offer to acquire Millipore with current market cap of around $5 Billion, with this bid of whooping $6 Billion Thermo will expand its portfolio from being instruments and consumable company to filtration expert for both bio pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical. This deal will give an edge to Thermo in comparison to its competitors like life technologies.

Start up funding ......................

We have watched movies about how to loose guy in 10 days or win a guy and today while I was going through Forbes update and got to look at it...
1. Bootstrapping
2. Friends and Family
3. Small Business grants
4. Loans
5. Incubators
6. Angel Investors
7. Bartering
8. Venture Capitalist
9. Commit to Major Customer
10. Partnering
What else for start up funding?

Read more in http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/12/funding-for-startups-entrepreneurs-finance-zwilling.html

Virtual Pharma companies

Past week after coming from a 3days trip from Luck now life was bit hectic and during the weekend was reading about virtual pharma and biotechnology service providers, In the past decade we had quite huge number of virtual companies in Bio-informatics related Drug Discovery (early 90s) to the completion of human genome project in year 2000 and then from initial 2000 we had more companies blooming up in the field of knowledge process outsourcing (Market, competitive and business intelligence) and CRO's , overall these virtual companies have become backbone for pharma industry for lead generation to drug's brand equity.

Pfizer Discount coupons

Pfizer has been heavily backing on its growth in emerging markets, earlier last year it came out with plan for subsidised medicine in United states and this year it has started the concept of discount coupons in the emerging markets, it has subsidised the price of its branded products to 50% with this Pfizer has targeted 500,000 patients in its belt so. it is planning to have the same card programs in Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela. Big pharma GSK and BMS have already started this discounted medicine in India....Now after FMCG discount retail we will have more to watch in Pharma sector.

Phrama Update- from City of Nawab's ......................

I am  at present here in city of Nawab to attend my   high school friend marriage and in  my free time thought of  writing my  3rd love after my work and  food which is intellectual  drivers...for  the past one year  I have observed that all  the major top 10 pharmaceuticals are rather cutting down their respective sales strength or rather their Research and Development expenditure companies in this list includes Pfizer,  Astra, GSK, Sanofi,  Bristol Mayer Squib to name a few and all these companies are  driving to restructuring and cost cut to save their cash  flow to  amount worth 30 to 40 Billion  so that  in next decade they may in license more drugs  in phase  III late stage  for cancer and neuro degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's , then enter into new therapeutic area

Wharton Update.........

Wharton business school has recently published article about the current drive of the pharmaceutical industry, the changes happening in the pharma business model, pros and cons of the pharma business models, pharma merger and acquisition trends, how is the deal flow happening.......

Read more in http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2424

Top 10 Pharma deals -2009

1. Pfizer and Wyeth - $68B
2. Roche and Genentech - $46.8B
3. MercK and Schering-Plough - $41.1B
4. Novartis and Alcon - $28.1B
5. Sanofi-Aventis and Merck - $4B
 6. GlaxoSmithKline and Stiefel Labs - $3.6B
7. Warner Chilcott and P&G - $3.1B
8. BMS and Medarex - $2.4B
9. GlaxoSmithKline and Brazil - $2.2B
10. Roche and PTC Therapeutics - $2B

Read more: http://www.fiercebiotech.com/special-reports/top-10-biopharma-deals-2009#ixzz0eKQg0a6I

BMS Update

BMS for long time has been reserving its cash for one medium size pharma or biopharma deal, last year during Q1-2009 it had cash reserves of $4 Billion and now Q1 2010 it has announced that it has cash reserves worth $ 10 Billion, Last year the major deal in its kitty was of Mederex and this year we have to watch which therapeutic area it is going to invest its dollars.......

Pfizer Update

World’s largest pharmaceutical Pfizer has unveiled its research pipeline details after closing its $ 68 Billion deal; in the press conference released today Pfizer announced that out of the 500 different drug programs it will dump 100 drug programs from its portfolio. Eight of its NDA are there for approval which includes one new Estrogen formulation for menopause. Pfizer pipeline till date include

• 30 drugs for cancer therapy
• 20 drugs for Pain therapy
• 10 drugs for Alzheimer’s disease
• 5 Vaccine products

 Martin Mackay (Senior VP-Research) said that his partner Mikael Dolsten  said that they have developed a research and development integration concept completely different from other drug company, accordingly he will be looking after mass market drug and Dolsten will be handling protein medicines and vaccines and after the compounds have passed the proof of concept then clinical trials will be conducted by Pfizer's business unit.

Compounds included in its pipeline are

• Prevnar, a vaccine against pneumococcal bacteria that cause brain and bloodstream infections (Next big thing after Lipitor)

• Prevnar-13, for infants- $5 billion franchise by 2013-  awaiting FDA approval

• Dolstein: Pfizer is trying it for pain and it is used against Staphylococcus aureus

• A nerve growth factors blocker: first protein drug targeted against the sensation of pain

Behind the Bullish Take on Our Top Pharma Pick | Morningstar.com Video

Ranbaxy for Vaccine deal.............

According to some market research reports overall antibiotic market is projected to have sales worth $65.5 Billion by year 2014 and is projected to have annual growth rate of 9.6%. In Indian scenario we have many companies to look forth who have in recent years transformed themselves from being chemistry based generic company to Biopharmaceutical vaccine based companies.


This Wednesday Daichii's Indian subsidiary Ranbaxy announced that it has acquired BioVel a Bangalore based Vaccine development company, with this deal Ranbaxy gets access to Biovel's patent, product portfolio, its expertise in vaccine domain and Ranbaxy will have access to it's WHO-certified pilot plant for pre-filled syringes in Bangalore

For more information on Biovel you can read in
http://www.blonnet.com/2010/01/20/stories/2010012052160200.htm

Mergers ..........

Today after long time got chance to read Mc Kinsey Quarterly article on Strong foundation for M&A in 2010. In this article they have mentioned that deal volume were at the least last year since year 2004 and though there were least private equity investment in year 2009 but there was no decline in corporate deals in the same year and according to me Pharma in United States had comparatively large chunk of M&A activity in 2009 as compared to year 2008.

In this report they have also mentioned that last year there were in total 5800 deals in various sectors worth $ 2.3 trillion and after United States it is Asia which has become major hub for M&A activity and I feel that China is leading in the rat race for Pharmaceutical merger and acquisitions and offshore R&D development for major pharmaceutical companies in Asia.

Click on the following link for more information:

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Corporate_Finance/M_A/A_strong_foundation_for_MA_in_2010_2501

JP Morgan Health-India Incorporation Update.....

This time for the first time India Incorporation Biopharmaceutical Company was present in JP Morgan Health conference......Biocon was represented by Kiran Shaw Majumdar...listed below are facts about Biocon.
 Biocon being major player in statins, immunosuppressant’s and global scale Mab production

 Being in number one position for Insulin production in Asia

 Its services for drug discovery (Syngene) to clinical trials (Clingene) for word class pharmaceutical companies, start ups

Its two major drugs which are in Phase III clinical development

 Oral Insulin tablet -IN105- It has started its Six month double control placebo studies- for Type II diabetes which it is planning to launch in emerging market.

 Tih Anti-CD6 Antibody which has entered into Phase III clinical studies for Psoriasis and it is going to start phase III studies for Rheumatoid arthritis.

Biocon has recently filed one more IND of the same compound in December 2009 as from preclinical studies it has got some evidence that the said Anti-CD6 antibody can be used for some metabolic disorder treatment.Biocon seeking more alliances in Monoclonal antibody discovery and production.

Note: Biocon is $1.2 Billion India based enzyme and Biopharma Company with more than 1000 patents filed and 200 granted patents which became public in year 2004.

Pfizer deals............

Last time I had posted about Pfizer planning to close deal with Wockhardt and then at last it went to close deal for generic expansion with Strides Acrolab in Bangalore.......now many more deals are awaited from Pfizer this year as it will be planning to move forward for more acquisitions in the generic domain.


Strides Acrolab has been massively expanding its product line in South American market and in year 2008 end it went into establishing its generic manufacturing unit in South America.......Now after Dr Reddy's and Stride we will have more deals in Indian generic scenario.

Gilead Update ...........................

Gilead Sciences, today announced that its Phase II integrase inhibitor drug, which is for once-daily, fixed-dose “Quad” regimen of elvitegravir, GS 9350 and Truvada® (emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) for the treatment of HIV-1 infection met its primary objective. The current study of 71 HIV-infected, antiretroviral treatment-naïve adults was compared to the Quad with Atripla® (efavirenz 600 mg/emtricitabine 200 mg/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate 300 mg). this data was collected in 24-week and efficacy of the Quad met the statistical criteria of non-inferiority as compared to Atripla based on the proportion of subjects with HIV RNA levels (viral load) of less than 50 copies/mL......though this is good news but from last year I have observed that Gilead has very few compounds in pipeline compared to GSK which has become very active in this Anti-viral space in a span of 10-11 months.
For more information on Gilead Sciences data report read in
http://www.clinicaspace.com/news_story.aspx?NewsEntityId=166874

Last Year ....this year again ..................Ophthalmic deals..........

Happy new year wishes to all my blog readers, I am back after a long vacation and today after two hectic days in office got time to write my blog. Last year in Q2 I started writing my blog I had seen that Abbott was very active in ophthalmic domain as it went on for many mergers and acquisitions from Q1 (2009) to Q3 (2009)....this year in the first week of current Q1 we have deal of Novartis and Alcon worth approximately 50 Billion, already last year Novartis has invested heavily in Alcon ...........Now we have more deals to watch and see if this years Pharmaceutical Merger and Acquisitions value will be able to exceed last year Q1 deal value?