Throughout the global pharmaceutical industry, 47% of respondents are ‘more optimistic’ about revenue growth for their company over the next 12 months relative to the previous 12 months. A further 28% of respondents are ‘neutral’ about revenue growth as compared with 23% who are ‘less optimistic’ about their company’s revenue prospects (InfoGrok). China is expected to continue to be a large part of the industry's growth, where the EU (obviously) is expected to slow down. Overall, though, the pharma industry is still working through its patent cliff, with the final last call for a few blockbusters (The Calm Before the Storm).
This is the second installment of the Big Pharma Review where the pipelines of GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Eli Lilly, Sanofi, and AstraZeneca will be updated/discussed (Part 1 is here).
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has been in the headlines recently for its desire to acquire Human Genome Sciences for $13/share ($2.6B). The company has plenty of cash, and it is not like it cannot afford HGSI, as GKS has a market capitalization of $114B. The company generates revenue of $43B and has a net income of $8.6B. GSK has also increasing its stake in Theravance (THRX – article on THRX here), and bought a German company, Cellzome, which uses a proteomics technology to analyze the efficiency of a drug and for safety profiling research.
The company's flagship products are in respiratory (Seretide/Advair (named Beyond Advair) and Avodart). In recent news, two experimental melanoma medicines (dabrafenib and trametinib) slowed the progress of cancer with few skin complications in an early study. Dabrafenib works by inhibiting BRAF, a mutant gene that spurs cancer cell growth in about half of melanoma patients, while trametinib is designed to thwart a related protein called MEK, which helps tumors resist an assault on BRAF. The drug combination had a lower incidence of rash and skin lesions than had been previously reported with Roche’s Zelboraf, according to a study of 77 patients with advanced melanoma, the most-severe form of skin cancer.
Vaccines, cardiovascular and dermatology (with its Stifel acquisition from a few years ago) will continue to drive growth. David Redfern of JPM has a very good slide deck from its 2011 Conference on GSK's revenue and pipeline here (PDF of GSK's pipeline…
