Cancer has been an elusive target for Isis Pharmaceuticals ISIS and their antisense drug candidates over the years, resulting in some spectacular failures in the past. In addition to the impending phase 3 prostate cancer data from partners OncoGenex $OGXI and Teva Pharmaceuticals $TEVA, Isis also has a growing roster of early stage cancer assets, a number of which now are included in a preferred partner option arrangement with AstraZeneca $AZN.
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This post features comments from the Teva Pharmaceuticals $TEVA year-end 2012 earnings conference call that are relevant to companies covered here at BiotechDueDiligence.
As usual the discussion centers COPAXONE for multiple sclerosis, which Momenta Pharmaceutical $MNTA and partner Sandoz (Novartis $NVS) are seeking approval for a generic version of. Related coverage: MNTA and biosimilars - notes from other biotech/pharma conference calls Other blog posts related to TEVA and MNTA (continued) For the moment, this will be the final installment of the BiotechDueDiligence AACR Annual Meeting preview..thanks for sticking with us. As always, see below for another collection of presentations from biotech companies covered on the website.
Full coverage: Introduction Preview Part 1 (SNTA, ASTX, NVS, INFI) Preview Part 2 Preview Part 3 (ARRY, ASTX) Preview Part 4 (ASTX, ARQL, BPAX) Preview Part 5 (TKMR, EXEL, PCYC, IMMU, VRTX) Preview Part 6 (CRIS INFI ISIS CLDX LGND PCYC) A new set of March 2013 investor relations (IR) questions and responses from biotechs provided by Mike O'Neill has been posted, covering financials and upcoming catalysts for each biotech stock.
This round of responses features Cleveland BioLabs CBLI, Neuralstem CUR, NewLink Genetics NLNK, OncoGenex OGXI, and Ohr Pharmaceuticals OHRP. Check out the complete index of all IR Questions and Answers if you missed the previous editions (covering >50 biotech and pharmaceutical companies) OncoGeneX $OGXI has licensed its lead prostate and lung cancer drug custirsen to Teva Pharma. Any inkling that the partnership was in jeopardy would be a huge blow to the small Canadian biotech. Custirsen is an antisense drug targeting clusterin, using technology licensed from isis Pharma.
Teva Pharma 2q-2012 earnings transcript courtesy on Morningstar. "And second, I'm not sure if Michael Hayden is on the phone, but if you guys are going through some of the strategic review of the key products you currently have in the pipeline, I was wondering if you can comment about where you are in terms of your thinking, specifically about things like DiaPep277, the oncology portfolio and perhaps Laquinimod now that it's being submitted in Europe?" Well, thank you, Ronny, for that question. We are currently undergoing a very detailed review of every project that's part of the R&D portfolio. DiaPep is part of that, and we will be reporting on the outcome of all of this during our Investor Day in December. But let me just talk about one of the drugs you mentioned in the pipeline, which has been a wonderful and a very pleasant surprise for me is the drug, Laquinimod. As you know, showed very significant results in terms of its ability to reduce disability progression and also brain volume loss. In fact, what's really quite remarkable about this unique asset is that many of its mode of actions and its ability to prevent inflammatory changes are already potentially extrapolateable to some of the more common and more serious disorders for which there really are no therapies. These include some of the neurodegenerative disorders. And so I would say as part of this review, of course, we are very interested at the potential utilization of drugs in our portfolio for other indications which would match the mechanism of action, which then would very suitably match the cores and the pathways perturb in some of these other diseases. So we're looking at this. And I'd say Laquinimod is one of those that has been a wonderful surprise in terms of understanding more deeply as to mechanisms of actions and its potential utility in other diseases. |
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