Pfizer new developments......

Sweden has been hub for recombinant protein production and purification for more than decade, in places like Uppsala there are more than 50 big medium to small start-ups. Yesterday in some reports it was mentioned that Pfizer is said to invest $214.8 million (€150m) for its biotechnology facility in Strangnas (Sweden). The plant will be used to develop E.coli and yeast strains for recombinant protein production and the plant will also manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for Pfizer’s human growth hormone (HGH) drugs Somavert (pegvisomant) and Genotropin (somatropin [rDNA origin]. The plant is expected to be fully operational in 2011.

Medical Devices ..........latest Alliance

Affymetrix , leader in micro array technology and Beckman coulter, Inc (Market leader in automated instruments for molecular and cellular biology) have joined hands to expand there business to capture the global automated new generation molecular biology instruments market , Theses two already have captured 60 to 70% of the market in their respective segments, Its high time for companies like Biorad, Corbet lifesciences, promega, Agilent, Roche and few others to change their strategies and develop more advanced technologies to make their presence felt in the coming years.

This partnership will help Affymetrix expand its validated automated target preparation method which will be configured with Beckman liquid handling system as for last two decades Beckman has been leader in developing instruments for carrying out genotyping and gene expression assays.....Now some more alliances are awaited in the life science automated system market.

Is there saturation in cardiac segment ?

Cardiovascular segment used to be once a major profitable segment for many pharmaceutical companies. Is it still the lucrative segment or else the focus in now oncology????

As in recent past I have not seen much approval for drugs in this segment.

H1N1 Therapy Part 2....................

Medimmune Biotech arm of Astrazeneca got around $ 150 Million from US government for Swine flu treatment therapy out of which $ 90 million was for development of swine flu vaccine. Already reports state that AstraZeneca is testing the nasal-spray technology FluMist for a product which will help to tackle swine flu, also known as the H1N1 virus. This spray FluMist generated around $ 104 Million sales last year and it is expected to generate $ 2 to 2.5 Billion by 2009-2010. According to scientists the Advantage of FLuMist is that it contains weakened forms of a live virus thus may require a much lower dose to build up immunity. Astra spoke person said that it is sooner going to start the clinical trial for Nasal spray for H1N1 treatment.

Indian Pharma What's Next ??????????????

India has been catering to global pharma sector not only in terms on Drug discovery but also global clinical trials.....Now what is the next target for the global pharma's? What I have observed in recent past is global big daddies are strategically forming alliances with Indian generics so that they can produce there drugs in cheaper rate in India and the marketing the same drugs with high profit margin in developed and emerging markets. India is the next destination for global contract generic manufacturing :)

H1N1 Therapy :)

After H1N1 was declared as a pandemic disease, All over the world people are eagerly waiting for some therapeutic regime to tackle this Virus. Baxter sometime back announced that with its Vero cell production technology Baxter is able to complete production of its first ever commercial batches of H1N1 vaccine within 12 weeks after it received the first virus strain. At present Baxter is in discussion terms with the health authorities for the said vaccine’s marketing approval and then its distribution plan. According to the sources of the company clinical trials to evaluate safety of the vaccine will begin soon within this month.

Are KPO's Protecting themselves?

For the past 2 to 3 years I have seen a major development in service sector such as KPO's (Knowledge Process Outsourcing)......in a span of 1 year the number has gone from 50 to start-ups or even more......So the question which comes in my mind is are these KPO's actually protecting their business model or they have even started thinking in that level....Are these KPO's taking any initiative from their end?

Merck.......HIV Success.............

Last decade there was hue and cry for treatment of AIDS, Many of the large pharmaceutical companies went on to target CCR5 inhibitors but there was one young scientist in Merck who went against all odds and said that Merck scientist should focus on Integrase inhibitors, it was a risk at Merck's end as its competitors were working on other targets, Later on Merck's Integrase inhibitor drug Isentress, was approved in 2006 and it went on to become Merck's fastest growing medicine last quarter. Sales of the twice-a-day drug jumped 123% to $172 million in the second quarter at a time when the overall U.S. drug market may shrink for the first time in decades. On July 9, this year the drug was approved as a choice for patients who are just beginning treatment. It is been estimated that the Drug will generate around $2 billion of revenue by this year end .........

Pharmacogenomics................the trend has started...............

Pharamacogenomics is related to personalized medicine, many companies have started thinking in that way for bringing up personalized therapy. Amgen with its operations in Seattle and Cambridge, MA, has specially designed cancer drugs for specific genetic subgroups and it has performed clinical trial for this.

Amgen said that its marketed anti-tumour drug, panitumumab (Vectibix) controls tumour growth for a significantly longer time for colon cancer patients with a normal form of a gene called KRAS, compared to patients with more aggressive, mutated form of the gene. The study was carried out in a group of 1,100 patients.....This is just the beginning....We have more to watch :)

GSK ...................filling its Cancer Pipeline

GSK for the past 2 years is rapidly evolving its cancer pipeline, For the past 6 months I have observed that GSK has been part of many deal related to drug or compound screening for cancer target to their synthesis and successive clinical trials....GSK has diversified its cancer target portfolio......Yesterday GSK announced that it has signed a deal with Vernalis of UK, This deal is worth $ 200 Million in fees and milestone payment....The later will be responsible for Drug discovery and GSK will be taking care of the preclinical work. Later on if any IND’s are filed then GSK will have chance to licence this compound to anyone for clinical trials.

Biosimilars Next Move .........................

What do you think which therapeutic segment will be the major focus for Bio similar companies over the next 5 years? Earlier in the first part of 2000 the bio similar companies were majorly focused on diabetics segment and now they have diversified into Cancer therapy which includes Monoclonal antibody production.....In coming time we are going to see many players not only from Europe but also from India and China in this segment.......Infact several Indian companies have started producing in pilot scale and some have even launched their products such as Dr Reddy's Rituximab bio similar product.........And in 2 to 3 years these companies might think of launching these MAbs in regulated market.....I hope that Indian Bio similar companies are part of the bigger picture soon :)

Big Pharma - Next move as VC's

Sometime back I wrote an article about GSK helping the new start-ups by being VC or angel investor on its own, Novartis and Roche has been in this business of being VC for quite sometime, this year perhaps the company in which Novartis had invested, and it went onto acquire the company last month. Today the news was that Lilly has also entered into financing deals in pharmaceutical sector with $200 Million funds, I am waiting for Pfizer and Merck entry sooner by this year end.

Nycomed .......company to watch in next 10 years.....

Last month Nycomed was in news for Solvey Pharmaceutical's bid and this month again the news is that Nycomed has signed a deal with Sanofi and in this transaction the company got right to 20 branded generic drug's of Sanofi....This deal will help Nycomed to strengthen its position in major part of Europe, What I feel is there will be more such type of deals coming up in Europe soon, its just the beginning:)

Process Outsorcing Models .........................

In late 1990's a new term came into existence that was BPO(Business process outsourcing, Lakhs of people from age group 16 to 35 years became and are still part of this industry. These BPO’s cater to sales and marketing requirement of their specific clients....then in early 2000 came the term KPO(Knowledge process outsourcing).....these companies specialized in making client specific reports in business analytics, Investment research, competitive intelligence, Intellectual property, sales and marketing..... then in early 2002-03 the term LPO (legal process outsourcing) came into existence which focused to Intellectual property and prosecution related stuff…..And for the past two years I am hearing one more term RPO (Recruitment process outsourcing)......Asia has become out sourcing hub for all sort of core industries:)