Amalia Adler-Waxman, vice president of Social Impact and Responsibility at Teva, told BioSpace that the company believes everyone should have access to essential medications, regardless of their geographic location.
Cancer can be a devastating diagnosis in the best of conditions, but in some parts of the world, lack of access to proper healthcare can exponentially increase the likelihood the diagnosis will become a death sentence.
That’s one reason that Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical has partnered with Global Hope (Hematology-Oncology Pediatric Excellence), a program of Texas Children’s Hospital, and Direct Relief to provide access to essential medications for patients in sub-Saharan Africa – a part of the world where an overwhelming majority of pediatric cancer and hematology patients do not survive, the company said.
Teva will provide essential medications to treat different kinds of cancer and blood disorders in pediatric patients to Direct Relief, which will then work with Global HOPE to administer the drugs. Teva will initially support the Global HOPE program in Malawi, with the potential to extend access of donated medicines to other Global HOPE sites across sub-Saharan Africa. Teva’s donation of medicines through this partnership will support the treatment plans for almost 95% of all chemotherapy patients, the company noted. Over the next five years, Global HOPE anticipates diagnosing and treating close to 4,000 new pediatric cancer patients in Malawi.
Amalia Adler-Waxman, vice president of Social Impact and Responsibility at Teva, told BioSpace that the company believes everyone should have access to essential medications, regardless of their geographic location. She notes that in the United States, more than 80% of children with cancer are cured, while 90% of those in sub-Saharan Africa die. Through this new partnership, Adler-Waxman said the company will be able to have an impact and begin to change that mortality outcome.
“We spotted an opportunity to not only utilize our diverse product portfolio for the benefit of children in need, but also an opportunity to learn from partners who have been on the continent for years and who could identify what role we could play in supporting and strengthening health systems, particularly in cancer care,” Adler-Waxman told BioSpace.
Adler-Waxman added that supporting the supply chain will provide access to pediatric oncology treatments “while laying the groundwork for Global HOPE and others to also potentially treat pediatric illnesses beyond cancer and hematologic disorders.”
Teva’s partnership with Global HOPE and Direct Relief was struck as the company continues to move forward with an ongoing restructuring that includes, in part, a greater emphasis on more lucrative products like biologics and a de-emphasis on generic manufacturing. As the company looks ahead into 2020, Chief Executive Officer Kare Schultz said during a recent earnings call that the company expects to see “continued growth for Ajovy, Austedo and our biosimilars.”
While Teva has shifted some of its focus from generics, in February the company released an economic impact statement showing that billions of dollars have been saved in the United States due to its generic products. Teva saved the U.S. healthcare system $41.9 billion in 2018, which is an estimated $292.6 billion saved by generic medicines overall, the company said, citing economic policy experts at Matrix Global Advisors. The report also pointed to Teva’s broader impact on the U.S. economy in 2018, including supporting more than 57,000 jobs, contributing $15.0 billion to GDP and generating $4.8 billion in labor income, the company added.
One drug that will likely add on to Teva’s bottom line is the newly-approved ArmonAir Digihaler (fluticasone propionate). The inhaler was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at the end of February as a maintenance treatment for asthma. The medication is an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) delivered via Teva’s Digihaler device, which contains built-in sensors and connects to a companion mobile application that provides information on inhaler use to people with asthma, the company said. The Digihaler device detects when the inhaler is used and measures inspiratory flow rates. These data are then sent to a companion mobile app so that patients can review their data over time.
The approval of the inhaler was preceded in January by the regulatory approval of an autoinjector device for the company’s anti-CGRP migraine treatment, Ajovy (fremanezumab-vfrm). Teva anticipates the autoinjector will be available for patients within the next few months. Ajovy was initially approved in the United States in 2018 as the first anti-CGRP that could be injected monthly or even quarterly. With the approval of the autoinjector, patients and their providers have a new option for administration of the drug.
In addition to the autoinjector approval, in February, Teva and its development partner for Japan Otsuka Pharmaceutical, released data from two Phase II/III trials with Ajovy that could pave the way for approval in that country. Preliminary trial results indicated that primary endpoints were achieved with both clinical and statistical significance versus placebo for subjects with chronic migraine and episodic migraine, respectively, the company noted.
While those have all been positives for the company, Teva has seen some disappointment since the beginning of the new year. In late February, the company announced that its Huntington disease treatment Austedo (deutetrabenazine) failed to meet its primary endpoint in a Phase II/III and a Phase III trial as a potential treatment for patients with moderate to severe Tourette syndrome. In addition to Huntington disease, Austedo, a vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) inhibitor, has been approved for tardive dyskinesia, a neurological disorder that results in unpredictable body movements. Tourette syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is marked by multiple movement tics, as well as coprolalia, a condition that causes people to utter obscenities or inappropriate remarks. Teva said it was assessing a path forward for Austedo in this indication.
