Θεόδωρος Τρύφων: Σε δύο χρόνια δεν θα έχουμε ελληνικό φάρμακο…

Σε συνέντευξη που παραχώρησε ο αντιπρόεδρος της ΠΕΦ Θεόδωρος Τρύφων στο TIME TV και στον δημοσιογράφο Σπύρο Κτενά, κατηγορεί την κυβέρνηση για ενδοτικότητα έναντι της τρόϊκας, επισημαίνοντας ότι, αντί να επιβάλλει η ίδια τον τρόπο που θα διατεθούν τα 2 δις. ευρώ της δημόσιας δαπάνης υγείας και να υποστηρίξει την εγχώρια παραγωγή και απασχόληση, υποστηρίζει τα ακριβά εισαγόμενα φάρμακα και τα εισαγόμενα γενόσημα.

Bristol-Myers, Ono Sue Merck Over Cancer-Drug Patent

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and partner Ono Pharmaceutical Co. 4528.TO +2.32% have sued Merck & Co., alleging that its new cancer drug violates their patent for a method of harnessing the body's immune system to fight cancer. Bristol and Ono filed suit in federal court in Delaware on Thursday, the same day that Merck received U.S. Food and Drug Administrationapproval to market Keytruda as a treatment for the deadly skin cancer melanoma. 

The dispute represents another front in a multicompany battle in the emerging market for so-called immunotherapy cancer drugs, which some analysts predict will reach more than $30 billion in annual sales in the next decade. The drugs have generated promising results in clinical trials, particularly for melanoma but also for other types of cancer.

Pfizer to promote two Novartis COPD drugs

UK chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients will be cheered by the news that Pfizer has signed a deal to promote two new drugs developed by Novartis.

The therapies in question are Seebri (glycopyrronium) and Ultibro (indacaterol/glycopyrronium) delivered through Novartis’ Breezhaler device. While the former has been available in the UK market since November 2012, Ultibro, which has a European licence, has not yet been launched.

Pfizer says it plans to make Ultibro available in the UK in due course, where there are approximately three million COPD sufferers. Novartis will continue to be responsible for the manufacture, sales and distribution of both medicines, in addition to regulatory, pharmacovigilance and medical information commitments. 

Fred Guerard, general manager of Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK, said “we are confident that together with the resources and expertise of Pfizer…we will help maximise access and availability of these important medicines for COPD patients”. He added that the firm will focus its resources on “equally important disease areas with high patient need such as oncology, wet age-related macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis and severe asthma, and on our pipeline products in areas such as heart failure and psoriasis”.

Jonathan Emms, Pfizer UK’s managing director, added that the deal “is good news for UK patients, as well as for both organisations”.

AbbVie links up with Google for $1.5 billion aging project

AbbVie and Google’s new life sciences unit Calico are putting in at least $250 million each to collaborate on drugs for age-related diseases, helping the latter “establish a world-class R&D facility” in San Francisco.

Each partner may contribute an additional $500 million to the collaboration which will look at areas such as neurodegeneration and cancer.  Calico will be responsible for research and early development during the first five years and advance projects through Phase IIa for a ten-year period, with the support of AbbVie.

Calico, which was set up a year and has former Genentech heavyweights Art Levinson and Hal Barron at the helm, said it expects to “begin filling critical positions immediately” and establish “a substantial team of scientists and research staff” in the San Francisco Bay Area. R&D chief Barron  said “we are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the many outstanding scientists at AbbVie to ensure that the important science at Calico is advanced quickly”.

AbbVie chief executive Richard Gonzalez said the collaboration “demonstrates our commitment to exploring new areas of medicine and innovative approaches to drug discovery and development “. He expressed his pleasure to be “working with such outstanding scientists as Art Levinson, Hal Barron and their team.  The potential to help improve patients' lives with new therapies is enormous”.

Google is becoming an increasingly important player in healthcare.  As well as Google Glass, which is being investigated in a number of areas, including Parkinson’s, this summer saw a deal in the USA looking at autism and a smart contact lens pact inked with Novartis.

The announcement of the deal ended a busy day for AbbVie which has bagged rights to Infinity Pharmaceuticals’ blood cancer drug duvelisib in a deal that could be worth over $800 million (see link).

Καλές διακοπές!!!

Amgen Says It Will Cut More Than 2,400 Jobs Worldwide

Amgen announced today it would cut 2,400 to 2,900 employees, or 12 percent to 15 percent of its total workforce, with the firings beginning this year and continuing through 2015. Most of the job reductions will come in the U.S., Amgen said. The company also said it will close facilities in Washington and Colorado, while expanding its presence in South San Francisco, California, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The changes “will allow us to reallocate resources to invest in our upcoming launches and drive growth,” Chief Executive Officer Robert Bradway said in the statement.

“The great companies are constantly figuring out how to do better,” Bill Smead, chief executive officer and chief investment officer of Smead Capital Management, which owns Amgen shares, said in a telephone interview. “They have a great balance between creating shareholder value and keeping an eye to the future.”

Amgen said it would take a pretax charge of $775 million to $950 million for the costs of the restructuring.

The job reductions announced today are in addition to those made earlier this year. In March, Amgen said it would cut 252 sales and corporate positions and announced plans to eliminate an additional 70 information service jobs in June.

Bad News for Pharma Bosses: More than half of employees want to leave

More than one-half--51%, to be exact--of biotech and pharma workers are looking to jump ship to a new company, according to Randstad's Pharma Engagement Study. The study reveals that within the next six months one-half (51%) of biotech/pharma workers are likely to seek out a job in a different company or organization, as compared to 38 percent of all employees polled. Furthermore, should they receive an enticing job offer from another company, 66 percent of biotech/pharma employees are likely to accept, compared to 44 percent of all employees polled.           

What Attracts Employees in the First Place? As part of their workforce development strategies, biotech and pharma companies must understand what potential employees value most. The Randstad study reveals that job seekers find the following most important when considering a position with a new company:

Εσύ, συμπλήρωσες το ερωτηματολόγιο της έρευνας; Οι προτεραιότητες των φαρμακευτικών εταιριών στην περίοδο της κρίσης

Η έρευνα διεξάγεται με σκοπό να ανιχνεύσει τις προτεραιότητες των φαρμακευτικών εταιριών που αφορούν κυρίως στην εμπορική τους δραστηριότητα κατά την τρέχουσα περίοδο της οικονομικής κρίσης.

Η έρευνα που πραγματοποιείται για πρώτη φορά στην Ελλάδα έχει σχεδιαστεί με απόλυτα επιστημονική μεθοδολογία και σύμφωνα με τους διεθνείς κανόνες ερευνητικής δεοντολογίας. Η έρευνα είναι ανώνυμη. Δεν καταγράφει προσωπικά στοιχεία ερωτωμένων, ούτε εταιριών.

Η συμμετοχή σας στην έρευνα είναι σημαντική γιατί με τις απαντήσεις σας θα συμβάλετε στο σχηματισμό μιας σφαιρικής εικόνας για τον τρόπο που λειτουργεί ο φαρμακευτικός κλάδος στο πεδίο της αγοράς, στη διάρκεια αυτής της κρίσιμης περιόδου.

Παρακαλούμε να σημειώσετε ότι η έρευνα είναι πιλοτικής μορφής. Εκτός από τα άμεσα αποτελέσματα που θα προκύψουν, τα ευρήματα της θα χρησιμοποιηθούν ως οδηγός για την δημιουργία ενός νέου ερωτηματολογίου με σκοπό την διεξαγωγή μιας μελλοντικής έρευνας, μεγαλύτερης κλίμακας, που θα «φωτίζει» σε μεγαλύτερο βάθος την εμπορική καθώς και άλλες λειτουργίες του φαρμακευτικού κλάδου στη χώρα μας.

Με την ελπίδα ότι θα θελήσετε να συμμετάσχετε πρόθυμα στην έρευνα που αφορά μια σημαντική λειτουργία του κλάδου στον οποίο εργάζεστε, σας καλούμε να συμπληρώσετε το online ερωτηματολόγιο πατώντας στον παρακάτω σύνδεσμο.
 

Θα χρειαστείτε μόλις δύο λεπτά για να συμπληρώσετε το ερωτηματολόγιο της έρευνας μέσα από τον υπολογιστή το tablet ή το τηλέφωνό σας.

http://survs.com/survey/0m21e0swjj

 Για περισσότερες πληροφορίες μπορείτε να επικοινωνήσετε με τον υπεύθυνο της έρευνας. 

 

nkazazis@pharmamarketing.gr

 

 

AstraZeneca reveals plans for global HQ in Cambridge

Having fended off Pfizer’s advances, at least for now, AstraZeneca has unveiled the designs for its new global R&D centre and corporate headquarters in Cambridge.

The £330 million new facility has been designed by Herzog & De Meuron, the architects best-known for Tate Modern and the Olympics Stadium in Beijing, is on Cambridge’s Biomedical Campus. The drugmaker says that the high technology labs on the site will be separated from other work spaces by glass walls to promote “visible science” and will feature a number of open spaces and thoroughfares. These are designed to “encourage collaboration not only within AstraZeneca, but also with the wider scientific community” on the campus and beyond.

Noting the environmentally-friendly virtues of the site, AstraZeneca said “the unique characteristics of Cambridge’s historic centre have influenced the shape of the buildings”. It will be low rise and include a central courtyard reflecting the colleges of Cambridge University.

Mene Pangalos, head of innovative medicines and early development, said the aim is to create “an open, welcoming and vibrant centre that will inspire our teams and partners to push the boundaries of scientific innovation”. It will bring together AstraZeneca’s small molecules teams and biologics research of its MedImmune unit.

In advance of the new site coming online in late 2016, by the end of this year, some 300-400 AstraZeneca staff will have relocated to the city. The designs were unveiled as part of a public consultation, ahead of submission of a detailed planning application in autumn. The company expects to begin building in early 2015

Defensive Allergan plots 1,500 job cuts, hikes forecast to fight off Valeant

Allergan's ($AGN) pulled back the veil on the restructuring it's hoping will lure shareholders away from Valeant's ($VRX) $53 billion hostile buyout bid. Among the blueprints: laying off 1,500 employees, or 13% of its global workforce--and leaving room for some potential acquisitions.

Those cuts--in addition to 250 vacant positions the company will shed--will help propel the company toward $475 million in 2015 pre-tax savings, Allergan said Monday. The company also announced second-quarter earnings of $1.40 per share--up from the $1.22 EPS it posted in last year's Q2--and hiked earnings guidance for this year and next.

The numbers, along with Allergan's latest cost-cutting plans, could force Valeant to up its buyout bid--if not fend off the hostile takeover altogether. "Today's announcement by Allergan makes it more difficult for Valeant to demonstrate how a merger can add incremental value and Allergan shareholders may now require Valeant to pay a greater premium for Allergan, we believe," Sterne Agee analyst Shibani Malhotra wrote in a note to clients.

Allergan's job-cutting ax won't fall on any "customer-facing personnel"--instead, the company hinted that it would be R&D jobs on the chopping block. But Allergan hastened to say that the R&D cuts wouldn't affect its hopes for new launches. "Any reductions in discovery programs will not impact approvals within the strategic plan period," it said in a release. Other savings will come from spending reductions across commercial operations, general and administrative functions, and manufacturing.

Don't rule out a buyout, either, the company says. Its rumored target Shire ($SHPG) may have been snatched up by AbbVie ($ABBV) last week, but Allergan says it has "additional strategic options" available, including acquisitions.

All of this--as well as the $0.05 per share second-quarter dividend Allergan announced with its earnings Monday--is part of its management's efforts to give shareholders "most of what they want" in lieu of a Valeant merger, CEO David Pyott has said. Quebec-based Valeant is rounding up support for a special shareholder meeting, at which it hopes to oust most of Allergan's current directors and replace them with a new, deal-happy slate.

But it seems at least one Allergan investor may have been unimpressed with the company's planned moves. A top Allergan shareholder, mutual fund Capital Research and Management Co., recently sold almost all of its Allergan holdings after meeting with Pyott, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Meanwhile, the two sides are still spitting fire at each another. Monday, Valeant got in touch with regulators in both the U.S. and Canada, citing Allergan's "apparent attempt to mislead investors and manipulate the market" with false statements concerning Valeant's last buy, the eyecare giant Bausch + Lomb.

"We do not believe that it is productive for either company to conduct due diligence in a public forum and although we have consistently offered Allergan the opportunity to conduct due diligence on our business, its management and board have refused, and have instead chosen to make misrepresentations ... about our business," Valeant chief J. Michael Pearson said in a statement.

But Allergan shrugged the criticism off, standing by its prior comments. "At the end of the day, investors will make their own decisions," it said.