December 16, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
LONDON – In an effort to boost its respiratory business, AstraZeneca struck a $575 million deal with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company to acquire that company’s core respiratory business, including global rights to roflumilast, a treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
AstraZeneca, the maker of blockbuster COPD treatments Symbicort and Pulmicort, currently has U.S. rights to roflumilast, which is sold under the brand name Daliresp in the U.S. and Daxas in Europe, which was acquired earlier this year in a deal with Actavis . Full acquisition of the global rights will support AstraZeneca’s respiratory franchise and complement the company’s portfolio of treatments for severe COP, the company said in a statement. Additionally AstraZeneca manufactures COPD drugs, Eklira Genuair, Tudorza Pressair and Duaklir Genuair.
Recent data has shown that roflumilast, an oral PDE4 inhibitor, “reduces exacerbations as an add-on to dual and free-triple inhaled combination therapies,” AstraZeneca said. In addition to the global rights for roflumilast, the Takeda deal also provided AstraZeneca with access to other marketed respiratory medicines and early pipeline products, including Alvesco and Omnaris.
“The agreement with Takeda complements our respiratory business, one of our three main therapy areas, supports our return to growth and will be immediately accretive to earnings from 2016. Daxas in particular adds to our portfolio of treatments for patients with severe COPD,” Luke Miels, executive vice president global portfolio and product strategy at AstraZeneca, said in a statement.
In addition to the $575 million payment to Takeda, AstraZeneca said it will also absorb about 200 Takeda employees as part of the deal. The deal is expected to be closed during the first quarter of 2016.
The deal will allow Japan-based Takeda to focus on its four core therapeutic areas: gastroenterology, oncology, central nervous system, and cardiovascular and metabolic, the London-based Telegraph reported.
In March, AstraZeneca announced positive results for its own experimental COPD treatment, PT003. PT003, is AstraZeneca’s combination of glycopyrronium, a long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA) and formoterol fumarate, a long-acting beta-2 agonist (LABA). The drug is the first LAMA/LABA combination to be delivered in a pressurized metered dose inhaler using the porous particle co-suspension technology developed by Pearl Therapeutics, which was acquired by AstraZeneca in 2013. The metered dose inhaler may make it easier for some patients to inhale. Each dose should be effective for about 12 hours. The Phase III double-blind trial included more than 3,700 patients with COPD at over 275 study sites. During the year-long trial some patients were provided with a placebo, while others were administered PT003 twice per day.
Annual global sales of the three core medicines acquired, excluding any AstraZeneca sales of Daliresp in the U.S., were $198 million as of March 2015.
A big money-making drug is something AstraZeneca is looking for to meet its revenue goal of $45 billion in sales by 2023. Acquiring new drugs through mergers and acquisitions will help the company offset declining revenues of drugs that are facing patent loss and increased generic competition, including the antacid Nexium and its heart drug Crestor. Last month AstraZeneca saw the approval of Tagrisso, its new treatment for non-small lung cancer.
Earlier this month, AstraZeneca was looking to bolster its oncology pipeline by acquiring the privately-held Acerta Pharma BV for more than $5 billion. Neither AstraZeneca nor Acerta have commented or confirmed the reports of the acquisition.
