Abraxis Biosciences launches Abraxane in Europe
pharmafile | January 2, 2009 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Abraxis, Cancer, EU
US biotech company Abraxis BioScience has launched its innovative breast cancer treatment Abraxane in Europe.
The drug is a variant on the commonly used treatment paclitaxel, but the science behind Abraxane makes it different from its rivals. It uses nanotechnology to re-formulate paclitaxel, which is bound to albumin, a protein that moves nutrients around the body and has limited side effects.
This eliminates the hypersensitivity problems associated with standard paclitaxel and makes it quicker to administer.
Abraxis chief executive Patrick Soon-Shiong hailed the launch as a milestone. He said: "The launch of Abraxane in the EU, initially in the UK, is a significant milestone in our programme to provide patients across the European continent with a new option for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer."
Abraxane is a second-line treatment of metastatic breast cancer for patients who have failed first-line treatment for the disease, and for whom standard anthracycline-containing therapy is not indicated.
It was approved in the US in January 2005 and earned its manufacturers $134 million in its first year.
Soon-Shiong said Abraxis had made significant progress during 2008 in expanding its market reach in India, China and the Asia-Pacific region, and to date the treatment has been approved in 36 countries.
More development possibilities for it include non-small cell lung, ovarian, prostate, adjuvant breast, melanoma, head and neck and upper GI cancers.
But some analysts have expressed reservations about the product's prospects. When approved last year, Datamonitor acknowledged it offered advantages in terms of treatment outcome but said uptake could be limited by better-established therapies.
The analysts said there are several hurdles to overcome if Abraxane was to penetrate the market. In particular they cited competition from cheaper generic versions of paclitaxel as well as from Roche's Xeloda (capecitabine), which has the advantage of a more convenient oral formulation.
Abraxis, as a small US-based company for whom Abraxane is its only marketed product, will also have to punch above its weight.
In the past it looked for help from bigger players, and in 2006 sold the US marketing rights for Abraxane to AstraZeneca for $200 million. But in November 2008 Abraxis re-acquired the rights for $268 million, after seeming disappointed at the returns from the deal.
The company has now chosen build its own sales force to promote the product and appointed College Hill to handle product-based PR and media relations for Abraxane in Europe.
Abraxane has also been approved in China, where it is expected to be launched later this year, and the product is currently under active review in Japan and Russia.
In Europe it has already launched in the UK with Germany to follow in early 2009.
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