November 6, 2014
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
In April of this year GlaxoSmithKline inked a deal with Swiss-based Novartis to develop a new consumer healthcare business. As part of the deal, Novartis bought GSK’s oncology portfolio for $14.5 billion along with an additional $1.5 billion developmental milestone contingency deal. This would seem to have been the end of GSK’s oncology business, but Reuters reported yesterday that GSK’s oncology business may not be dead quite yet.
A small group of researchers at GSK are still continuing work on oncology treatment innovations. “If we continue to do deals … and keep growing our in-house pipeline,” said Alex Hoos, vice president of oncology research at GSK in an interview with Reuters, “then we will have a pipeline in three years that is very competitive with the rest of the industry.”
The approach this time, consistent with Hoos’ history of work with Bristol-Myers Squibb ’s melanoma treatment, Yervoy, is to focus on stimulating and programming the body’s immune system to target cancer cells. Despite the promise of this approach, analysts aren’t completely convinced that GSK will be in a position—or have the inclination—to invest time, money and other resources to oncology R&D.
“It’s hard to envision GSK spending a lot of money in an area in which they no longer have a commercial presence,” said Marshall Gordon, healthcare analyst for ClearBridge Investments in a statement.
“It will be very challenging for them to get back in the game,” said Ori Hershkovitz, an analyst with the Tel Aviv-based Sphera Fund in a statement, “but not impossible.” He does note, however, that GSK had a number of cancer pipeline failures, including its MAGE-A3 therapy for lung cancer and melanoma, and Votrient for ovarian cancer, which “drove the spirit out of the company in oncology.”
Although the company’s interest in oncology appears only nascent or lingering, it has had a number of successes in the respiratory area, with FDA approval of Arnuity Ellipta (fluticasone furoate) for asthma; Incruse Ellipta (umeclidinium inhalation powder) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis and emphysema; and Breo Ellipta (fluticasone furoate and vilanterol inhalation powder) for COPD, chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
In the original deal with Novartis, GSK acquired Novartis’s vaccines business for $7.1 billion and royalties. On November 3, Denmark-based Genmab A/S announced it had signed an agreement with GSK and Novartis Pharma AG to transfer its ofatumumab collaboration to Novartis. Originally collaborating with GSK, this deal further reinforces the GSK’s shift away from oncology. Ofatumumab is a potential treatment for lymphocytic leukemia and lymphoma that targets the CD20 molecule on the surface leukemia cells and normal B cell lymphocytes.
