Pfizer buys anti-infective specialists Vicuron
pharmafile | June 17, 2005 | News story | Sales and Marketing |
Pfizer has paid almost $2 billion for a US biopharmaceutical company with two promising anti-infective drugs.
The acquisition of Vicuron Pharmaceuticals will broaden its anti-infective portfolio at a time when sales of its own antifungal drug, Diflucan, are tumbling following its patent expiry last year.
"By acquiring Vicuron, we can help bring two very important new medicines to patients around the world," said Pfizer chief executive Hank McKinnell.
Vicuron has two promising drugs, antifungal treatment Anidulafungin and antibiotic Dalbavancin, which have shown positive late-stage results and are both currently undergoing review by the FDA.
Dalbavancin has shown impressive results in fighting complicated skin and soft tissue infections and is under fast-track review by the US regulator, which is expected to make its licensing decision in September this year.
Anidulafungin, according to Pfizer, is a significant advance in the treatment of serious fungal infections that will complement Vfend, Pfizer's follow-up drug to Diflucan.
The daily dosage treatment is expected to work against aspergillus and most candidal fungal infections.
The acquisition of Vicuron is indicative of Pfizer's approach to strengthening its pipeline and escaping dependence on its blockbuster treatments.
In recent years Pfizer has begun to break from the traditional model of cherry-picking the most promising compounds for co-development or co-marketing deals with biotech companies and instead has bought several outright.
In January 2004, it bought lipid control specialists Esperion Therapeutics for $1.3 billion. A year later it bought Californian biotech Angiosyn (its lead compound a macular degeneration product) for $527 million followed just one month later by Idun Pharmaceuticals, specialists in apoptosis or programmed cell death.
"Smaller targeted acquisitions and licensing agreements are the message here," a company spokesman said recently.
Pfizer said its existing collaboration with the Pennsylvania-based Vicuron has already yielded significant advances in potentially the first new class of antibiotics in 30 years, next-generation oxazolidinones.
A number of these orally active antibiotics are being evaluated by Pfizer as clinical development candidates and are believed to offer a broader spectrum of activity to existing compounds.
Pfizer and Vicuron are expected to close the deal in the third quarter of this year.
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