Life Science Weekly inSite (Nov. 14 - Nov. 20)
A weekly round-up of biotech’s top stories from around the world
By Suvarna Bhatt, Feature Editor
The top story to hit the biotech world was Novartis AG who announced it has decided to take 100 jobs to India on Tuesday. The company plans on making the city of Hyderabad its home for clinical research data management and financial services. The office will see an addition of 100 employees. The news of the shift comes after an announcement last year that the giant will cut about 3,000 jobs. The company has not made any similar large job cuts since that time.
On Thursday, AstraZeneca announced it will eliminate 1,400 jobs and close plants in Europe as it increases costs while facing competition from generic companies. The company said it will close plants in Spain, Belgium and Sweden by 2013 in addition to the 7,600 positions that will be eliminated by 2010, as was previously announced. The news came along with word that AstraZeneca won a temporary restraining order blocking Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. from selling a copy of the Pulmicort Respules, an asthma treatment until a patent hearing scheduled for November 25, 2008.
The third largest news this week in biotech-land was Amgen , Takeda and Millennium ‘s announcement that they have suspended a clinical trial of motesanib, an experimental cancer drug because of higher deaths among patients taking the medication. Motesanib was being administered in phase three trials as an initial treatment with chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer. The companies suspended the trial after an independent monitoring committee’s safety data review of 600 patients found higher early mortality rates among patients receiving the drug compared with those getting a placebo, according to a statement released on Business Wire.
On Wednesday, Wyeth announced lay-offs of more than 100 employees at its plant in northern New York. The drug plant has been sold to Akrimax Manufacturing, which hopes to recover lost jobs. Officials at the plant in Rouses Point, New York, said 118 workers will be let go in January. The company currently has 725 employees at the plant. Wyeth is also terminating 71 jobs at its facility in Pearl River in Rockland County.
Eli Lilly and Company and United Therapeutics Corporation entered an agreement on commercialization rights for tadalafil, for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) on Monday. Based on the agreement, United Therapeutics will pay Lilly $150 million upfront for the exclusive rights to commercialize tadalafil for PAH in the United States. Lilly will manufacture and supply tadalafil to United Therapeutics. Lilly will retain commercialization rights to tadalafil for PAH outside of the U.S. as well. In addition, Lilly will purchase $150 million of common stock from United Therapeutics.
Pacira Pharmaceuticals, Inc. , a San-Diego company had some positive news. According to a regulatory filing, it increased its Series A financing round to $85 million. Investors in Pacira include MPM Capital, HBM BioVentures, OrbiMed Advisors and Sanderling Ventures.
AstraZeneca ’s tumultuous news week began on Wednesday when the drug-maker announced mixed results in late-stage trial of Zactima, a lung cancer treatment, sending stocks falling. AstraZeneca said the phase three trial met its key goal in combination with Sanofi-Aventis’s Taxotere, a chemotherapy treatment but not with Eli’s Alimta. The results also showed the drug did not perform better than Roche, Genentech and OSI’s Tarceva.
A new company, Ascent Therapeutics , made its debut on Tuesday when it announced the appointment Frederick Jones, M.D., its new CEO. Ascent is a new biopharmaceutical company developing Pepducin® lipopeptides, a novel class of GPCR modulators which are used to treat a variety of serious illnesses. The Company also announced $19 million Series A investment by venture investors including Novartis Option Fund, Healthcare Ventures and TVM Capital.
More job cuts are in the air...Bristol-Myers Squibb ‘s CFO John Marc-Huet foreshadowed the company is aligning itself to save $2.5 billion in productivity initiatives in a presentation at the Credit Suisse Healthcare Conference last Thursday. According to an article written by Jim Edwards for BNET, these initiatives are likely to be related to reducing company headcount and related costs. Edwards also speculates Bristol’s earnings show the company is in prime position for lay-offs since company expenses in marketing, selling and administrative costs have increased while net income for the company has not rose as significantly.
Pfizer Inc. made noise at the end of last week by announcing the launch of a global regenerative medicines research unit which will be called Pfizer Regenerative Medicine. The independent research unit will be geared towards understanding the biology of stem cells and discovering and developing regenerative medicines for major medical needs. The research unit is expected to place Pfizer at the forefront of an emerging area of science. Pfizer Regenerative Medicine will be located in Cambridge, UK and Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States. The unit is expected to expand to employ around 70 researchers.
That’s it for this week’s leading biotech news from the BioSpace news desk…stay tuned for the following week’s top movers and shakers…
Suvarna Bhatt is a Feature Editor for BioSpace.com. Click here to contact her.
