Merck buys Idenix
pharmafile | June 10, 2014 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Sales and Marketing | HCV, IDX21437, IDX21459, Merck, hep C, idenix
Merck is to improve its pipeline of hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatments by splashing out $3.85 billion on biopharma firm Idenix Pharmaceuticals.
The US pharma group is to pay $24.50 per share to seal the deal, which has been approved by both companies’ boards and is expected to go through in the next three months.
“Idenix has established a promising portfolio of hepatitis C candidates based on its expertise in nucleoside/nucleotide chemistry and prodrug technologies,” explains Roger Perlmutter, president of Merck Research Laboratories.
“Idenix’s investigational hepatitis C candidates complement our promising therapies in development and will help advance our work to develop a highly effective, once-daily, all oral, ribavirin-free, pan-genotypic regimen,” he adds.
Around 170 million people worldwide have HCV, a virus that infects the liver and can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer – and the market for treatments could rise to more than $100 billion over the next decade, according to Bloomberg Industries.
Idenix currently has three HCV candidates in clinical development: two nucleotide prodrugs (IDX21437 and IDX21459) and a once-daily NS5A inhibitor (samatasvir).
These are under investigation in various ways: for example, samatasvir (IDX719) is being combined with Janssen’s simeprevir in the HELIX-1 study in treatment-naïve genotype 1b and genotype 4 hepatitis C patients.
The new deal gives Merck access to these promising compounds – and the manufacturer is keen to challenge Gilead’s once-daily, oral hepatitis C treatment Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), which was shown the green light by the European Commission in January, just a month after being approved in the US.
While Sovaldi is seen as the potential market leader, with analysts forecasting annual sales of $9 billion or more, the World Health Organisation criticised its $1,000 a day – $84,000 for a 12-week course – price tag, saying these new drugs must be priced in-line with what the world can afford.
Idenix chief executive Ron Renaud says of the Merck deal: “This agreement creates shareholder value by positioning Idenix’s strong portfolio of candidates for future success with a leading healthcare company with the experience and commitment to develop fixed-dosed combinations with the potential to impact the global burden of hepatitis C.”
Merck has several HCV medicines in development, foremost among which is a combination of MK-5172, an investigational HCV NS3/4A protease inhibitor and MK-8742, an investigational HCV NS5A replication complex inhibitor.
This once-daily, oral combination has received ‘breakthrough therapy’ designation from the US Food and Drug Administration to treat HCV, and last month Merck announced initiation of Phase III trials to evaluate it with and without ribavirin in various genotypes and across a broad range of patient populations with chronic HCV.
Merck received a lift with promising data from the Phase II C-WORTHy study of the drugs in patients with chronic HCV Genotype 1 infection (GT1).
It says that 98% of treatment-naïve, non-cirrhotic patients taking MK-5172/MK-8742 alone for 12 weeks showed a sustained viral response (SVR), while 94% of those administered with this combination plus ribavirin (RBV) had an SVR.
Bristol-Myers Squibb’s daclatasvir, an investigational NS5A replication complex inhibitor, is also in the mix as a treatment in this therapy area.
It is currently being looked at by the European Medicines Agency and would be the EU’s first all-oral and ribavirin-free investigational regimen for use in treatment-naïve genotype 1, 2, 3 patients and protease inhibitor treatment failures, should it be approved.
Adam Hill
Related Content
Merck to acquire Curon Biopharmaceutical’s B-Cell Depletion Therapy
Merck have announced that they have entered into an agreement with private biotechnology company Curon …
Merck and Daiichi Sankyo expand development and commericalisation agreement to include MK-6070
Daiichi Sankyo and Merck (known as MSD outside of the US and Canada) have announced …
CHMP gives positive opinion for Merck’s KEYTRUDA for unresectable or metastatic urothelial carcinoma
Merck (known as MSD outside of the US and Canada) has announced that its anti-PD-1 …
