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    Home > Active Ingredient News > Drugs Articles > Pfizer's "grapevine" has been hammered! is divesting early-stage rare disease research, selling some of its major assets...

    Pfizer's "grapevine" has been hammered! is divesting early-stage rare disease research, selling some of its major assets...

    • Last Update: 2023-02-02
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    preface

    preface

    January 5, 2023, 4:37
    PM EST.

    Barron's revealed an "inside story" that Pfizer would "externalize" (sell, spin off or seek collaborations) most of its early-stage rare disease pipeline in neurology and cardiology, as well as gene therapy projects that have not yet entered clinical trials
    .

    Also suffering from "externalization" are its gene therapy manufacturing plant in Durham, North Carolina (Pfizer announced an investment of nearly $70 million at the end of 2021) and another cancer-focused R&D group in Boulder, Colorado (part of Array, which Pfizer acquired in 2019 for $11.
    4 billion
    ).

    On January 6, Pfizer confirmed the news
    to Endpoint News.

    The "largest factory in the universe" wants to divest pipelines and sell assets?

    01 First rule out the lack of money, and then find the problem

    01 First rule out the lack of money, and then find the problem

    When you see this kind of information, the first thing that comes to mind is that the company is in a survival dilemma, but it is Pfizer
    .
    The limelight is incomparable, eating the new crown good Pfizer
    .
    According to Pfizer's latest financial report, Pfizer's overall revenue in the third quarter was $22.
    6 billion, and it is expected that full-year 2022 revenue will be between $99.
    5-$102 billion (on November 1, Pfizer raised the lower limit of its full-year 2022 financial guidance, originally expected to be between $98-$102 billion).

    And Pfizer increased the full-year revenue of Comirnaty, a new crown vaccine, by $2 billion to $34 billion; Paxlovid's full-year revenue is expected to be $22 billion
    .
    The pocket is bulging, with Pfizer's nature, it will be somewhat "lonely"
    .
    In March, Pfizer spent $6.
    7 billion to acquire Arena Pharmaceuticals; In October, another $5.
    4 billion was spent to acquire GBT; That same month, it spent another $11.
    6 billion to acquire Biohaven
    .
    Since this year "Not bad money", so why did Pfizer make this "abnormal" adjustment? This may reflect some of Pfizer's concerns:

    Coronavirus products account for the majority of Pfizer's revenue, how long can this revenue last?

    Putting aside the new crown products, what is left of Pfizer?

    Does the remaining pipeline or product have the potential to become the next generation of bombshells?

    And how will Pfizer respond to the threat posed by the patent cliff? According to the latest financial report, the production of the new crown vaccine Comirnaty outside the United States fell by 86%.

    On the surface, the European Commission delayed the previous vaccine delivery plan, but the deeper layer reflects the slowdown
    in market demand.
    Comirnaty and Paxlovid aside, Pfizer's product revenue in other areas has declined
    .
    Primary healthcare business decreased 5% year-over-year; Professional nursing business decreased by 9% year-on-year; The oncology treatment business was on par
    with last year.
    In addition, the revenue of its products Xeljanz and Sutent fell by 14% and 43%,
    respectively.
    There is also Pfizer/BMS's "star product" apixaban, which has gained a lot of market share with its first-mover advantage, but its growth has gradually slowed
    with the impact of latecomers and generic drugs with expired patents.
    Some analysts estimate that although Pfizer can temporarily fight possible competition, the expiration of the patent in 2026 may cost Pfizer about $20 billion in sales
    .

    02 Compulsory courses for capacity layout and asset structure optimization

    02 Compulsory courses for capacity layout and asset structure optimization

    The industry view is that whether it is Big Pharma, Biotech or CRO, all have high investment and long cycle times
    .
    Pipeline commissioning, enterprise structure optimization, daily management and operation will determine the distance
    of enterprise progress.
    Careful consideration of capacity layout and asset optimization is a compulsory course
    for all pharmaceutical companies.
    Pfizer's divestiture of the Durham plant is the result of careful consideration of the layout of production capacity - a break from the false "boom" of repeated construction of drug production and excessive idle rate of production equipment
    .
    Once, viral vector-based gene therapy was the brightest star
    in biotechnology.
    But over time, questions about safety, efficacy and commercialization began to come to light
    .
    For example, Pfizer's two viral vector-based gene therapies, both used to treat rare diseases, ended up in bad luck
    .
    In December 2021, fordadistrogene, a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).
    The phase III clinical trial of movaparvovec was suspended
    due to the death of 1 patient in the phase Ib study.
    After revising the protocol, in April 2022, Pfizer announced that the US FDA had allowed the trial to continue
    .
    September 2022, Pfizer and Sangamo Therapeutics announced it will restart gene therapy giroctocogene fitelparvovec Phase III clinical trial, re-recruiting subjects, which delayed the trial by 2 years
    from the original plan.
    A Pfizer spokesperson said, "In the future, Pfizer will no longer emphasize investment in new virus-based gene therapies and focus on non-virus-based gene therapies that leverage the infrastructure established by the company, such as lipid nanoparticle technology
    .
    " It is not difficult to see that Pfizer has indeed been "tossed" enough
    .
    But this does not mean that they will give up the rare disease market
    that has been heavily invested for more than ten years.
    As one of Pfizer's six major businesses, now is the time
    to "pick the fruit".
    The proportion of related revenue has increased year by year, from 4% in 2017 to 8%
    in 2021.
    Total revenue soared from an average of approximately $2.
    2 billion in 2017-2019 to $3.
    5 billion
    in 2021.
    Pfizer informed employees that while it may not conduct new rare disease research, the company will include early rare disease research such as rare blood diseases (excluding neurology and cardiology) and platforms such as gene editing, and transfer its early rare blood disease program to the cancer research and development department
    .
    This is Pfizer's optimization of asset structure, reducing the proportion of unstable assets, and increasing the number of high-quality pipelines in order to achieve stability
    in the future.

    For example, Pfizer's two viral vector-based gene therapies, both used to treat rare diseases, ended up in bad luck
    .

    03 Pfizer knows it

    03 Pfizer knows it

    In fact, as early as 2018, Pfizer took a similar "externalization" and handed over a series of research products in the field of neurological diseases to Cerevel Therapeutics
    。 In December 2022, Pfizer also partnered with Roivant to establish a new company called Vant, focusing on the development and commercialization
    of TL1A monoclonal antibody RVT-3101 (i.
    e.
    PF-06480605).
    Pfizer has also gradually changed from a Big one Pharma transforms into Big Biotech
    。 Taking advantage of today's new crown drug dividend, Pfizer can quickly expand its pipeline, optimize its asset structure, and further transform.

    For Pfizer, the "plump and healthy" pipeline is bound to attract the attention and favor
    of more investors.
    For the industry and other pharmaceutical companies, the divestiture of the Pfizer pipeline and the addition of the "fresh pipeline" will create a series of BD deals? And which companies or individuals will change their fate?

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