Abbott touts positive Parkinson’s Phase III as pharma split looms

Posted under Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Labs, Blog, Clinical Trials, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Miles White, Parkinson's, Pharmaceuticals, Startups, Universities, Videos by john

Banking on double-digit earnings growth and a string of pipeline deals and developments, Abbott Laboratories ($ABT) execs said they are "on track" to go ahead and spin off the pharma side of the business later this year. And in a separate announcement, the company touted positive late-stage results for its gel therapy for Parkinson's disease.

CEO Miles D. White said the first quarter results persuaded the company to raise its guidance for the year, adding that "we remain focused on the process of separating Abbott into two leading healthcare companies, which remains on track to be completed by the end of the year."

On the pharma side, investigators reported that a gel formulation of levodopa-carbidopa helped amp up Parkinson's patients "on" times, reducing their exposure to poor motor functions, which is a classic symptom of the disease. Inserted into the small intestine with the use of a portable pump, patients were dosed over a 12-week period. Mean "off" time for patients was reduced by close to two hours a day compared with the tablet arm of the study.

"These results demonstrate that continuous delivery of levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel produces statistically meaningful improvements in advanced PD patients by decreasing 'off' time and increasing 'on' time without troublesome dyskinetic symptoms," said Mount Sinai's Dr. C.W. Olanow. "These benefits in a patient group that cannot be satisfactorily controlled with standard levodopa, represent an important step forward in our efforts to treat advanced PD patients."

Abbott's been making a number of advances on the pharma front in recent months. Just days ago Abbott posted promising results from its mid-stage study of a new hepatitis C treatment, the protease inhibitor ABT-450. And late last year Abbott expanded on its partnership with Reata Pharmaceuticals. 

- get the press release on the Parkinson's study
- read the release on earnings
- here's the Dow Jones report

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Abbott’s deal-team delivers $1.35B Galapagos RA pact

Posted under Abbott Labs, Blog, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, Galapagos, JAK inhibitors, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Pharmaceuticals, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Startups, Universities, Videos by John Carroll

Still wheeling and dealing as it lays the foundation for an independent pharma operation, Abbott ($ABT) today revealed that it is paying Belgian biotech Galapagos $150 million upfront to license in a promising oral treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. And it will pony up an additional $200 million if Galapagos can deliver positive Phase II data, along with a billion dollars in potential milestones.

The object of Abbott's affection is GLPG0634, a JAK1 inhibitor that Galapagos has been developing for RA and other autoimmune diseases. The JAK, or Janus kinases, are a group of enzymes responsible for triggering autoimmune diseases.

"We are excited to continue the Phase II trials and expect to deliver to Abbott a complete Phase II package in 2014," said Onno van de Stolpe, the CEO at Galapagos. "With GLPG0634 we have proven that we can deliver from target to clinical proof of concept, and we aim to do the same on many novel target programs in our pipeline. This collaboration is transformational for Galapagos, providing the means to progress these innovative products into the clinic."

Back in the fall of 2010, Abbott agreed to pay Reata Pharmaceuticals $450 million in near-term cash in exchange for ex-U.S. rights to the chronic kidney disease drug bardoxolone. Then late last year Abbott proffered a $400 million upfront fee to gain rights to Reata's second-gen drug portfolio. This new pact underscores that the pharma side of Abbott, which is being spun out on its own later this year, has the cash and ambition to strike big-dollar partnerships.

- here's the press release

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13 Big Pharmas to collaborate on $785M fight against neglected diseases

Posted under Abbott Labs, Andrew Witty, Big Pharma, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Blog, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, GlaxoSmithKline, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Pfizer, Pharmaceuticals, Startups, Universities, Videos, World Health Organization by John Carroll

Top executives from a slate of the world's biggest pharma companies will be rubbing shoulders with Bill Gates today as they roll out an ambitious plan to join hands on a $785 million effort to develop new drugs and distribute therapies designed to eradicate 10 long-neglected tropical diseases by 2020.

For his part, Bill Gates is pledging $363 million of Gates Foundation cash to the consortium to fund research and production. And Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization, cheered the move, saying that "with the boost to this momentum being made today, I am confident almost all of these diseases can be eliminated or controlled by the end of this decade."

There are 13 Big Pharma companies in the consortium, which is being led by Glaxo CEO Andrew Witty. And as Witty noted, many of the companies have already been beavering away at the NTD field for years. Stung by repeated accusations that Big Pharma was solely interested in big profits, shunning the diseases that afflict the poorest people on the planet, Sanofi ($SNY), GSK ($GSK) and others have been working on their own pro bono projects in the field. Now Abbott ($ABT), AstraZeneca ($AZN), Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY), Eisai, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ), MSD, Novartis ($NVS), Pfizer ($PFE) and Sanofi will be working together in a non-competitive field, in which there are no profits to be made.

Abbott, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer will partner on new drugs to treat helminth infections, notably a macrofilaricide, which kills adult worms that cause river blindness and lymphatic filariasis.

"Many companies and organizations have worked for decades to fight these horrific diseases," said Witty in a statement. "But no one company or organization can do it alone. Today, we pledge to work hand-in-hand to revolutionize the way we fight these diseases now and in the future."

- read the press release
- get the Bloomberg report
- here's the story from Reuters

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JPM kicks off with fevered focus on the next big biotech deal

Posted under Abbott Labs, Achillion, Biotech IPO, Blog, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, Hepatitis C, Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Inhibitex, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Merck, Mergers and Acquisitions, Novartis, Pharmaceuticals, Pharmasset, Roche, Startups, Universities, vertex, Videos by John Carroll

The news of the Bristol-Myers/Inhibitex deal couldn't have been better timed. With the biotech world converging on San Francisco today for the annual JP Morgan confab, there's nothing like a 10-figure deal to get everyone whipped up about the potential for making it big in drug development. And this year you can expect to hear plenty of discussion about another year where deal-making will be at the top of the agenda for the biopharma business.

So who's next? Ever since the $11 billion Pharmasset ($VRUS) buyout, tongues have been wagging about the next likely takeout. And now that Inihibitex ($INHX) has found a buyer and agreed to a price, Idenix ($IDIX) and Achillion have emerged as the next two biotechs most likely to find themselves asking for more at the bargaining table. Both developers helped feed the rumor mill today with some positive updates on their hep C programs.

Edward Tenthoff, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, has tapped Vertex ($VRTX), J&J ($JNJ), Merck ($MRK), Boehringer Ingelheim, Abbott ($ABT), Pfizer ($PFE) and Novartis ($NVS) as potential buyers, a list that is too long to be completely wrong. Brian Skorney would add Roche ($RHHBY) to the list of hep C bidders, which would help to further inflate any final price being paid for a remaining biotech player.

Bloomberg, which loves to feast on buyout rumors, helped prime the discussion pump in advance by speculating that a pair of big biotechs--Amgen ($AMGN) and Celgene ($CELG)--could make deal-making even hotter this year if they kick off a big round of buyouts to excite fretting investors about their future.

The problem is that the early-January JPM hype almost never lives up to the reality. The most exciting thing that could happen to biotech this year would be a big IPO for a drug developer with all its assets in the clinic. That kind of trend would really help inspire investors to sink cash into biotechnology. And there's no firm indication that this year will be all that different from the bleak reality of the past three years.  

- here's the story from Bloomberg   

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