Healthy Skepticism Library item: 7163
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
AstraZeneca rises after Pfizer setback
MSN Money 2006 Dec 4
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=FT&Date=20061204&ID=6243809
Abstract:
Shares in AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical group, rose in London after Pfizer, the US drugs company, cancelled the development of a rival anti-cholesterol drug.
The action, which strengthens the position of Crestor, AstraZeneca’s existing cholesterol-lowering medicine, helped push up shares in the Anglo-Swedish group by 1.4 per cent to £29.30.
The markets were braced for a sharp fall in the Pfizer share price after it announced this weekend that it would abandon development of its experimental torcetrapib after late-stage Phase III clinical trials showed a 60 per cent increase in deaths. In early trading in Frankfurt on Monday, Pfizer’s shares fell more than 9 per cent.
Pfizer had planned to launch torcetrapib as a combination anti-cholesterol treatment with Lipitor, its blockbuster that is the world’s top-selling drug, but which comes off patent in 2011. It had planned to file for regulatory approval in the second half of next year.
The decision is an embarrassment for Pfizer’s recently appointed chief executive Jeff Kindler, named after the board ousted Hank McKinnell with a mandate to turn around the company and surmount rising patent challenges to the company.
In a note, Morgan Stanley called the development “an important positive” for AstraZeneca, boosting its recent upgraded forecast for Crestor to generate $5.1bn in annual sales by 2012.Some analysts raised concerns about future development concerns for other drugs similar to torcetrapib, including Roche of Switzerland’s R1658, currently in Phase II. However, Morgan Stanley stressed that Roche’s CETP inhibitor JTT705, which uses the same mechanism as torcetrapib with less toxicity, stood to gain from the news.
