The continued
prosperity of a biopharma company is dependent on its ability to keep churning
out breakthrough new drugs and turning them into commercial successes backed by
a growing body of clinical evidence. Which shops are doing best on those terms?
In its latest
two indices, IDEA Pharma has ranked AstraZeneca at the top of the pharma invention
scale—awarding it "best pipeline" honors—and crowned Roche king in
the land of innovation.
AstraZeneca
previously sank to 12th place on the innovation scale but rose to 6th this
time, and it remained at the top of the invention scale for the second straight
year. How did the British drugmaker make it in 2019?
IDEA handed AZ the honor mainly because of two drugs.
First, after multiple failures in the field, AZ’s potentially first-in-class
anti-IFNAR1 antibody anifrolumab succeeded in a phase 3 lupus trial after a mid-study
endpoint tweak. The drug did better than placebo on a composite lupus disease
activity score.
And COPD triplet
Breztri Aerosphere demonstrated it could significantly cut the rate of disease
exacerbations compared with two other Aerosphere delivery tech-based dual-drug
combos. The fact that it could do that even when patients received just half
the standard dosage of the budesonide component was remarkable in IDEA’s
view. AZ said it would submit the additional data after the FDA declined to approve the new therapy last fall.
While the
invention index focuses on a company’s pipeline, evaluating novelty and
clinical development movement, innovation is defined by IDEA as a company's
“return on invention.” In other words, invention is about coming up with
innovative technologies, whereas innovation asks the question: “If two
companies had the same molecule, which would be more successful with it?”
Roche jumped
seven spots to land first on the innovation index, the first time the Swiss
drugmaker has done so in the 10 versions IDEA has compiled to date.
IDEA attributed
the significant rise to several milestones the company’s PD-L1 inhibitor
Tecentriq achieved in 2019. It was the first immuno-oncology agent to nab an
FDA nod in triple-negative
breast cancer and the
first to enter previously untreated extensive-stage small cell
lung cancer. A combo of
Tecentriq and Roche’s own Avastin also lengthened lives of new liver cancer patients compared with
Bayer’s standard-of-care Nexavar, making it the first time in a decade that a
treatment has improved survival in this population.
Roche’s multiple
sclerosis blockbuster Ocrevus also saw multiple successes. For example, the
drug showed it could significantly cut the risk of requiring a wheelchair among patients with
the primary progressive form of the disease if given early.
In terms of
other ranking changes, Novartis rose big time, and Vertex burst onto the
innovation scene. Gilead Sciences made significant advancement in the invention
race, but its innovation score fell sharply.
Roche's Swiss
compatriot Novartis jumped six places for innovation, landing at No.3, while it
continued to hold the No.4 spot for invention. IDEA elevated Novartis after it
had “a historic year” with five novel drug approvals—Adakveo, Beovu, Mayzent,
Piqray and Zolgensma—in 2020.
CDK4/6 inhibitor
Kisqali’s first-in-class win of prolonging the lives of premenopausal women with
HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer marked an advantage Pfizer’s
market-leading blockbuster Ibrance doesn’t have. Repurposing Arzerra from a lagging leukemia treatment into a
successful MS drug that could be a serious threat to Ocrevus helped round out a
successful 2019 clinical run for Novartis, IDEA noted.
