Monthly Archives: April 2013

Xtandi- The Real Potential and the Astellas Part!

Xtandi- The Real Potential and the Astellas Part! Expectations that Xtandi (Enzalutamide, Approved, Prostate Cancer) is going to bring a paradigm shift to treat prostate cancer as an ideal antiandrogen therapy (includes positive expectation from interim analysis of PREVAIL expected at ESMO-13/ early 4Q 2013 study in pre-chemo setting) has recently resulted in a rally in Astellas’ price. Although, the clinical profile of Xtandi (steroid free regimen, better safety and efficacy than Zytiga) carries potential to compete with Casodex/Zytiga generics…

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Hemophilia

Hemophilia is an inherited (X-linked recessive trait), lifelong bleeding disorder that prevents blood from clotting due to insufficient or lack of adequate amount of clotting factors – Factor VIII (FVIII) and Factor IX (proteins in blood that control bleeding). Plasma-derived FVIII and FIX proteins were used in the 70’s for treating these disorders but transmission of contaminating viruses reduced its use. In 1999, recombinant FVIIIs and FIX, free of viral, animal, or human proteins became the standard of care (SoC).…

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Rituxan Biosimilar

The growth in the biosimilar opportunity will be driven by several patent expiries of mega-blockbuster biologics in the next 5 years. Between 2012 and 2017, over $60b worth of sales of biologics in the US/EU will lose patent protection. Out of them, Roche’s/Biogen Idec’s Rituxan/MabThera (rituximab), Merck and JNJ’s Remicade (infliximab), and Amgen and Pfizer’s Enbrel (etanercept) had WW sales of ~$23b in 2011 and have patents expiring in EU and ROW in 2013/14. Biosimilar version of Rituxan was launched…

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