October 27, 2014
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Speculation is growing stronger that AstraZeneca will abandon its research and development efforts in the antibiotic and anti-infectives markets, according to a much followed industry blog.
David Shlaes, on his Antibiotics blog, wrote on Oct. 21, “I have been able to confirm that AZ has told its antibiotics researchers that they should make efforts to find other jobs in the near future. Even though there has been no official announcement yet that the antibiotics research group will be disbanded, their scientists are starting to head for the hills.”
On Oct. 24, AstraZeneca, through an unnamed spokeswoman, indicated to the Wall Street Journal that the blog post was highly speculative, noting AZ was continuing work on anti-infectives, including an antibiotic used to treat hospitalized adults with stomach infections. That compound, ceftazidime-avibactam (CAZ-AVI) showed positive top-line results in August of this year in the company’s pivotal Phase III studies.
“However, we have previously said on a number of occasions that we would take an opportunity-driven approach in our non-core therapeutic areas of infection and neuroscience,” AZ’s spokeswoman wrote. “This means we would focus our resources on the core therapeutic areas and look for opportunities to maximize the value of our pipeline infection and neuroscience.”
In September 2014, President Barack Obama released the “National Strategy For Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria.” The new policies are designed to prevent, detect and control outbreaks of pathogens identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as being resistant to existing treatments. The documents cite carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), methicilin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), ceftriaxone-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Clostridium difficile.
While it does seem possible AZ is distancing itself from anti-infectives research, the company has been making active inroads into the cancer market. On Friday the company announced that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) had approved Lynparza (olaparib) for treatment against ovarian cancer. The company has indicated the drug has the potential for sales of $2 billion annually. Final approval is expected in January 2015.
Also, it was also announced on Friday that Pfizer , which had been in talks to acquire AstraZeneca, has abandoned that effort in light of U.S. tax changes related to tax inversion deals such as the Pfizer-AstraZeneca deal.
The company recently presented data from its oncology pipeline at the European Society of Medical Oncology 2014 Congress held in late September in Madrid. The company presented over 40 abstracts, including preliminary data on a Phase I trial for MEDI4736 (PD-L1) + tremelimumab in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), Phase I study of MEDI4736 in metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, and Phase I/II study of AZD9291 in patients with epidermal growth factor receptor mutation positive advanced NSCLC.
AstraZeneca is also strengthening its work into Alzheimer’s research. It’s R&D arm, Medimmune recently entered into four collaborations with the University of Cambridge to focus on neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.
