company:pfizer inc.

    • Gratos en passant par google,

      After dismantling its antibiotics team in 1999, Switzerland’s Roche Holding AG RO.EB -2.10% is recruiting a head of anti-infectives to rebuild its in-house expertise. Last year, Roche licensed an experimental new antibiotic from Polyphor Ltd., a biotechnology company, and is investing as much as $111 million in antibiotic-focused RQX Pharmaceuticals Inc.

      GlaxoSmithKline GSK.LN -1.69% PLC of the U.K. recently said it will receive as much as $200 million in U.S. government funding for its antibiotic program.

      Those companies join just a handful of major pharmaceutical competitors, including AstraZeneca AZN.LN -1.74% PLC and Novartis AG NOVN.VX -2.99% , that are now active in antibiotic discovery and development.

      Pharmaceutical companies moved out of antibiotic development en masse in the past 15 years, citing high research costs, poor returns and onerous regulations. Consequently, the pipeline for new antibiotics dried up. In the 1980s, 30 new antibiotics gained approval in the U.S. Between 2010 and 2012, only one did.

      Pfizer Inc., PFE -2.97% one of the pioneers of penicillin mass production, shut its antibiotic-research facility in 2011, along with Johnson & Johnson. JNJ -2.30% In 2002, Eli Lilly LLY -1.87% & Co. left the field to focus on chronic illnesses. Sanofi SA SAN.FR -4.19% shed its anti-infectives unit Novexel in 2004.

      “We were not having success developing novel approaches for difficult-to-treat bacterial infections,” says Pfizer’s vice president of clinical research, Charles Knirsch. “After a great deal of consideration, we decided that enhancing our focus on infection prevention would represent a more prudent return on investment.”

      Luckily for public health, the unfavorable economics are changing. Regulators in the U.S. and Europe recently have moved to clear roadblocks that have impeded antibiotic development, with the U.S. granting priority review for innovative new drugs.

      Research funding is beginning to flow as well. The European Union funds antibiotic research projects with industry and universities. U.S. government funding is available to companies developing promising new molecules.

      Alternative commercial models are being discussed that get around the problem of low sales volumes: selling new drugs in bulk to health-care providers for use when needed, or charging a fixed license fee for access to them.

      There is an acute medical need for new antibiotics. Antibiotic-resistant infections now kill around 50,000 people a year in the U.S. and Europe, and that number is rising, according to the World Health Organization. In the U.S., two million people a year will contract a drug-resistant infection, with direct health-care costs of as much as $20 billion, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

      Overuse of antibiotics has built up bacterial resistance to them, making current drugs less effective. Their widespread use in animals farmed for meat introduces more antibiotics into the food chain, undercutting their efficacy.

      With few new drugs to prescribe, and the old standbys frequently failing against drug-resistant strains, doctors are sometimes forced to reach for older, more-toxic drugs.

      Finding new ones has become a huge scientific challenge. “Gram-negative” bacteria, including superbugs such as carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae, are particularly hard to target. A kind of double cell wall makes it hard to get antibiotics into the organism, and if they make it inside, “pumps” inside the bacteria often push the drug out.

      “The low-hanging fruit of antibiotics that were easy to discover has been picked,” says Brad Spellberg, infectious-disease expert at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute.

      Even if antibiotics make it to market, oncology drugs are on average three times as profitable, and musculoskeletal drugs produce more than 10 times the returns, according to estimates from a 2009 London School of Economics report.

      For example, ceftaroline fosamil, an antibiotic approved in the U.S. in 2010, costs around $600 for a seven-day course. Contrast that to yervoy, a new drug to treat melanoma, that costs $120,000 for a 12-week course.

      “Society values antibiotics wrongly,” says David Payne, head of antibacterial research at GlaxoSmithKline. “These are lifesaving drugs—they don’t just give patients a few extra months.”

      John Rex, head of infection at AstraZeneca—which has one of the stronger current antibiotic pipelines—concedes that his unit isn’t as big an economic driver as areas such as oncology. “The math is clear,” he says. “It’s hard for the whole anti-infective industry.”

      Unlike a drug to treat a chronic condition, antibiotics are usually taken for a week or two, limiting sales. The most commonly prescribed ones, including azithromycin and amoxicillin, are now available as low-cost generics.

      Charging higher prices could help spur development. In a recent paper in Nature, Drs. Spellberg and Rex argue a hypothetical new drug to treat Acinetobacter baumannii, a cause of hospital-acquired infections, could offer value for health-care providers even if priced at as much as $30,000 a course.

      U.S. health insurers Aetna and Cigna declined to comment on the hypothetical price, but the U.K.’s pricing-advisory body NICE already recommends the use of two cancer drugs that cost more relative to the additional lifespan they offer patients.

      While most big drug makers continue to invest elsewhere, some smaller companies are stepping into the antibiotics breach. Small and medium-size companies are now responsible for 73% of antibiotics in development, according to BioPharma statistics.

      Boston-based Cubist Pharmaceuticals CBST -1.21% was formed in 1992 and now has two approved antibiotics and a $5 billion market capitalization.

      Another Boston startup, Enbiotix, is in discussions with multiple big drug makers interested in a deal, including those without active anti-infectives divisions, according to its chief executive, Jeff Wager.

      “Antibiotics are never going to be huge blockbusters,” Mr. Wager says. “And yet the short answer is, we need these drugs. I don’t think big pharma can call themselves good corporate citizens without them.”

    • ah oui merci @kassem ; j’avais essayé par google et ça ne le faisait pas, mais en prenant un autre navigateur, la même astuce a marché — les heuristiques des #paywall sont parfois étranges :)

    • Avec l’histoire personnelle de Quinn Norton qui illustre bien le problème de fond. Une femme exposée régulièrement à une infection urinaire qui devient peu à peu résistante à tous les antibiotiques

      Infection, Watching Life and Death Evolve in the World
      https://medium.com/quinn-norton/ba3521edcf52

      A few years later I finally got insurance and a regular doctor that I saw more than once. He would culture the infection from time to time to decide what to give me. My little E. coli were resistant to Amoxicillin, which I found hilarious, because I wasn’t — I am allergic to it. At some point, my E. coli had evolved resistance to a drug that could very well kill me. “My bug is stronger than me!” I joked with my doctor.

      Then one day Keflex stopped working. On a report from the culture the little resistance box had flipped from no to yes. “No problem,” my doctor told me, “Cipro will work fine,” and it did, for a long time.

      Over the years I kept losing drugs. I would get infections, take a drug for a while that killed it, but then one day I would take the drug and it wouldn’t work anymore.

  • Pfizer, Takeda Reach $2.15 Billion Patent Infringement Settlement With Teva, Sun Pharma - WSJ.com
    http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130612-704420.html

    Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. (4502.TO, TKPYY) have reached a $2.15 billion settlement with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (524715.BY) for patent-infringement damages resulting from their launches of generic Protonix in the U.S.

    #pharma #brevets

    • Les #financiers au coin du bois
      Le mercredi 11 avril 2012
      http://la-bas.org/spip.php?page=article&id_article=2764

      http://media.la-bas.org/mp3/120411/120411.mp3

      S’il est élu Monsieur Hollande n’ira sans doute pas au #Fouquet’s, mais le Fouquet’s viendra à lui. Pas pour rire mais pour lui donner sa feuille de route : le Pacte Budgétaire, c’est à dire « la rigueur », la flexibilité du marché du travail, le refinancement des retraites, le dégraissage dans la fonction publique, la « modération » des salaires etc.

      Tout ça au nom de la Crise et de la dette publique. Certes, Monsieur Hollande a dit qu’il renégocierait ce traité. Certes, certes... mais quelques uns ont des doutes. Ils sont dans notre émission d’aujourd’hui qui commence avec un prédicateur du #Marché, un vrai !

      Reportage de François Ruffin.
      Programmation musicale :

      – Ava Carrère : « Valse triste »
      – Yvon Etienne : « L’actionnaire »
      – ZEP : « Pas de baratin »

    • Le plan de bataille des financiers (souvenirs)
      http://www.lesmutins.org/Le-plan-de-bataille-des-financiers.html
      https://vimeo.com/40577072

      Avant l’élections présidentielles, Nicolas Doisy, chief economist à Chevreux (#Crédit_Agricole), nous avait fait part du plan de bataille des financiers en cas de victoire de #François_Hollande aux #présidentielles... Vous vous souvenez ?

      Un sujet de François Ruffin, réalisé par Olivier Azam - Les Mutins de Pangée - Avril 2012 - Avec Fakir et la-bas.org.

      la traduction en Français du Texte de N. Doizy sur Fakir
      Le plan de bataille des marchés (traduction)
      http://www.fakirpresse.info/Le-plan-de-bataille-des-marches.html

      C’est une note de neuf pages, en anglais, rédigée par le « premier broker indépendant en actions européennes ». Dans ce document, que l’on retrouve dans l’intégralité sur le site de Reporterre, on découvre « le plan de bataille des #marchés » si François Hollande l’emportait. En voici une traduction...

    • France’s Hollande Casts Fate With Ex-Banker Macron
      http://www.wsj.com/articles/frances-hollande-casts-fate-with-ex-banker-macron-1425851639
      https://web.archive.org/web/20150317113328/http://www.wsj.com/articles/frances-hollande-casts-fate-with-ex-banker-macron-1425851639

      As the French president shifts away from tax-the-rich policies, Economy Minister Emmanuel #Macron vows to be ‘more confrontational’

      By Stacy Meichtry and
      William Horobin
      Updated March 8, 2015 6:13 p.m. ET

      French Economy Minister #Emmanuel_Macron got an earful in January from U.S. technology and retail executives as they lectured him in a meeting at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas about France’s inhospitable business reputation.

      [...]

      Mr. Macron juggled his work for Mr. Hollande’s campaign with his duties as an investment banker for Rothschild & Cie. Leveraging connections made through Mr. Attali, Mr. Macron helped arrange Nestlé SA’s $11.8 billion purchase of Pfizer Inc.’s baby-food business.

      The takeover made Mr. Macron wealthy and taught him how to curry favor in a risk-averse corporate culture. “You’re sort of a prostitute,” he says. “Seduction is the job.”

      Meanwhile, Mr. Hollande faced pressure in a tight election campaign to reassure his Socialist Party base. In January 2012, he delivered a barnstorming speech that warned of a “nameless, faceless” menace to France.

      “This enemy is the world of finance,” Mr. Hollande told a cheering crowd. Behind the scenes, he dispatched Mr. Macron to London to reassure investors that the presidential candidate wasn’t a hard-liner.

      The two men clashed when Mr. Hollande vowed to levy the 75% tax on salaries of more than one million euros. Mr. Macron fired off an email to Mr. Hollande, hoping to steer him to a softer stance: “This is Cuba without the sun!”

      After his election, lawmakers approved the tax, and Mr. Hollande stocked his cabinet with left-wing Socialist Party members. Arnaud Montebourg, who regarded government as a guardian against corporate takeovers by foreigners, was named France’s industry minister.

      But in a sign of Mr. Hollande’s determination to balance competing interests, the new president hired Mr. Macron as his deputy chief of staff and primary conduit to the business world.

      Under pressure from the European Union to balance public finances, Mr. Hollande announced €7.2 billion in additional taxes on companies and wealthy people—and then raised the tax bill by €20 billion.
      A business rebellion

      French business owners rebelled. They protested the plan publicly, and layoffs pushed France’s unemployment rate above 10%. Mr. Macron urged Mr. Hollande to change tack, and the president unveiled corporate tax credits of €20 billion in November 2012. Mr. Macron later convinced Mr. Hollande to double the tax breaks despite criticism from the left.

      Mr. Macron also confronted Mr. Montebourg over his attempt to engineer a merger between French engineering firm Alstom SA and German rival Siemens AG. Mr. Montebourg wanted to stop U.S.-based General Electric Co. from buying Alstom’s core turbine business.

      In a June 2013 meeting at the Élysée Palace, Mr. Macron told Mr. Montebourg, who had been promoted to economy minister: “You can block a marriage, but you cannot force a marriage.”

      Mr. Montebourg relented. The next day, the French government backed GE’s proposed $17 billion acquisition. A spokesman for Mr. Montebourg didn’t make him available to comment.