AstraZeneca buys Ardea Biosciences
pharmafile | June 22, 2012 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing |Â Â Abbott, Ardea Biosciences, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Humira, TakedaÂ
AstraZeneca has completed its acquisition of US firm Ardea Biosciences in a $1.26 billion deal that it hopes will shore up a shaky pipeline.
San Diego-based Ardea is developing an oral, once-daily treatment for gout, plus another late-stage cancer candidate, and AstraZeneca has paid $32 per share to get its hands on them.
The potential gout product is lesinurad, a selective inhibitor of URAT1 – a transporter in the proximal tubule cells of the kidney that regulates uric acid excretion from the body.
Meanwhile BAY 86-9766, a specific inhibitor of mitogen-activated ERK kinase for the treatment of cancer, is being developed under a global licence agreement with Bayer HealthCare.
The Ardea deal also includes RDEA3170, a next-generation selective URAT1 inhibitor currently in Phase I development.
Gout is a potentially lucrative market, valued at around $1 billion, with 50% of sales coming from outside the US and Europe.
Earlier this year Takeda bought the gout specialist firm URL Pharma for $800 million, acquiring gout treatment Colcrys (colchicine), which had sales of $430 million last year.
Takeda already has a strong position with its drug Uloric (febuxostat), used to lower blood uric acid levels in adults with gout.
Other drugs on the market include Teijin/Takeda’s Adenuric (febuxostat), first approved in the US in 2009 and with 2010 sales of $87 million.
AstraZeneca believes lesinurad, which is in Phase III, is a potential next-generation treatment and plans to file with US and European regulators in the first half of 2014.
In a statement, analyst Zacks Equity Research said this means lesinurad could be in a favourable position since many gout patients do not respond to xanthine oxidase inhibitors – such as Uloric and the widely-prescribed generic allopurinol.
Lesinurad is being studied as an add-on to allopurinol, in patients not reaching target serum uric acid levels on allopurinol alone – it is also being used as monotherapy for patients intolerant to allopurinol or Adenuric.
But Zacks warned there is still concern over AstraZeneca’s $2 billion loss of revenue to generic competition last year, weak late-stage pipeline and slow uptake of oral blood thinner Brilinta.
Jittery shareholders, who share these worries, have already showed what they think of it all: chief executive David Brennan was ousted from the company in April.
Analysts elsewhere have recently indicated that they would like to see the Anglo-Swedish drug company merge with the new R&D firm, AbbVie, formed by Abbott’s split into two companies which could happen as early as next year.
Abbott’s Humira, which has half a dozen licences in inflammatory diseases, will become the world’s biggest selling drug this year but analysts believe the company needs more protection – possibly from a merger – before Humira goes off-patent.
Adam Hill
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