May 8, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
BOSTON – The northeast pharmaceutical hub around Boston continues to grow with the relocation of Keryx Biopharmaceuticals to the city’s Seaport area from the company’s current headquarters in New York City, the Boston Business Journal reported.
Keryx is moving into a 25,000 square-foot facility, 150 percent larger than current space used by the company, to accommodate a growing staff. The company currently employs 55 people, but has plans to hire additional 10 staff members by the end of the year, Greg Madison, Keryx’s chief executive officer told the Journal. Most of the company’s executives will be headquartered in Boston, although the company plans to keep a manufacturing facility in New York that will have about 15 employees.
Boston has exploded as the central pharmaceutical hub on the east coast and more companies are locating there to take advantage of the area’s resources, including the large number of private and academic research institutions as well as the proximity to hundreds of innovative companies. The close proximity of so many pharmaceutical and university laboratories provides researchers and scientists easy access to clinical studies and building partnerships between companies.
According to the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, which makes its home in Cambridge, Mass., the heart of the state’s biotech industry, the biotech and pharmaceutical presence in the state grew by 41 percent between 2004 and 2013. Across the state the industry employed 57,642 in 2013, the most recent year with complete data. Recent growth in the Boston area includes IBM’s new Watson Health Unit, which will employ 2,000, as well as GlaxoSmithKline ’s new innovation center in Boston.
Sparking Keryx Biopharmaceuticals’ expansion is its new drug Auryxia (ferric citrate), which was approved in September of 2014 for the control of serum phosphorus levels and iron levels in chronic kidney disease patients on dialysis. Madison told the Journal the U.S. patient population is 450,000, which amounts to about $1.1 billion in sales. He said he plans on capturing about 80 percent of that market. In its first three months, the drug earned $42,000 in revenue, a slower pace than some analysts were expecting.
Auryxia is currently the only drug the company has on the market, which means it is the company’s primary potential for growth. The company is seeking approval to market Auryxia in Europe and expects a ruling from the Union’s regulatory authorities sometime in mid-2015. The company is conducting additional clinical trials to expand the reach of the drug to anemia patients with stages III to V chronic kidney disease, who have previously not responded to oral iron therapy.
The study will evaluate changes in hemoglobin levels in 230 patients over the course of the trial. The study is expected to be completed by the end of 2015. Assuming successful completion, Keryx intends to file a supplemental new drug application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Smartanalyst.com reported.
Earlier this week analysts at Zack’s Investment Research rated Keryx as a hold, although a consensus rating of multiple analysts rate the stock as a buy. Analysts at Maxim Group lowered their price target on shares of Keryx from $32 to $17 per share. Roth Capital analysts also lowered their price target on shares from $27 to $23.
Keryx stock was trading down this morning at $9.65 per share from its closing price Thursday of $9.73 per share.The company released its quarterly report May 4 reporting revenue of $1.2 million. The company reported $0.28 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ estimates of $0.30.
Will Hungry Pfizer Make a Play for Struggling GlaxoSmithKline?
Almost a year after its $119 billion offer for AstraZeneca PLC fell apart in the face of massive opposition from regulators and internal dissent, global drugmaker Pfizer Inc. is once again being floated as a potential buyer of another marquee-name British pharmaceutical company: GlaxoSmithKline . We at BioSpace want to know your thoughts: With cash to burn, will Pfizer go hunting for Glaxo?
