February 29, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Unidentified inside sources are saying that Ingelheim, Germany-based Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH and North Chicago, Ill.-based AbbVie are considering a significant partnership in oncology.
AbbVie spent much of last year in what appears to be a losing battle with Gilead, Inc. over the two companies’ hepatitis C drugs. Express Scripts Holding Co., signed an exclusive distribution deal with AbbVie, part of a pricing negotiation to receive a discount on AbbVie’s HCV drug, Viekira Pak. Gilead signed a definitive agreement with health insurance company Anthem, Inc. that its Harvoni for HCV would be the primary treatment for genotype 1 hepatitis C. Gilead also has an exclusive rights deal with CVS Health Corp to exclusive sell Harvoni and Sovaldi.
In May, AbbVie made a big entrance into the oncology market by acquiring Pharmacyclics, Inc. Pharmacyclics markets Imbruvica (ibrutinib), a first-in-class BTK-inhibitor for the treatment of hematological cancers. The company indicates it already had five late-stage assets in its pipeline. Two, venetoclax, a Bcl-2 inhibitor, and duvelisib, a dual Pl3 kinase inhibitor, are being developed for hematological cancers.
Boehringer, on its part, has a focus on lung cancer drugs. It markets Giotrif for non small-cell lung cancer, and Vargatef when later-stage patients. It also has pipeline products for lung and bowel cancer.
The company announced today that the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) gave a positive opinion to recommend approval of the company’s Giotrif (afatiniv) for advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the lungs. It is aimed at patients whose disease has progressed on or after platinum-based chemotherapy treatment. Patients in the study on the drug had a 19 percent improvement in progression-free survival compared to patients on Genentech and Astellas ' Tarceva (erlotinib). A final decision is expected in the next two months.
Both companies have declined to comment on any pending deal. Boehringer is in talks with Paris-based Sanofi to exchange its consumer-health operations with Sanofi’s animal-health business. That deal is valued at $24.9 billion.
Bloomberg indicates the negotiations could still collapse. However, any deal in the oncology market between these two companies could be worth billions of dollars. There are no details being released, so no one as yet knows whether the partnership would involve the drugs they both have on the market or focus primarily on pipeline projects.
