A key asset to watch in Ligand Pharma $LGND's portfolio is their royalty rights for a BACE inhibitor MK-8931 in development for Alzheimer's disease by Merck $MRK. You can find more of BiotechDueDiligence's extensive coverage of MK-8931 here. The drug didn't get much discussion on Merck's 1q-2013 earnings call, but some comments were made at their recent Sanford Bernstein presentation (excerpts c/o SeekingAlpha).
"Our BACE inhibitor for Alzheimer's, which is in phase 2/3 and as you know, Alzheimer's is a disease that is going to have significant impact on our population. If you look in through the Alzheimer's Society, it costs the U.S. population about $200 billion right now. If we don’t have a disease modifying agent that number should go through $1 trillion in the year 2050. So its very important to have important therapeutic in that area."
Is there anything else? If you were to pick one or two other drugs in your Phase 2 or Phase 3 pipeline that you want to call special attention to that you think we will be generally excited about?
One that I am really excited about, although it is still very early days, is the BACE inhibitor for Alzheimer's. I think most people think that we are studying the most prominent, useful hypothesis around Alzheimer's development. We have a product that gets 90% receptor occupancy against the target. We are going to be able to test the data hypothesis in a robust way. It is one of these opportunities that really reflects why, at some point in this business, you have to be going for game changing therapies....
There is risk in this business, certainly. Everything can't be a swing for the fences opportunity. But sprinkled into your portfolio has to be some opportunity that can have a profound effect on health and therefore profound effect on Merck. BACE is one of those programs, frankly. So I would point to that as an example of the kind of thing that actually makes me very excited. The early data that we have produce on that really is very encouraging....
I think I wouldn’t go so far to say that we are all banking on it being the transformation of Merck. We are very cautiously data driven organization. We know that we are studying a compound and we are also trying to prove a fundamental hypothesis at the same time. So that makes you really try to be reserved a little bit. But I have got to tell you, behind all of those intellectual comments, is a very visceral excitement that this could be the kind of compound that changes the world...
We think we have a great compound. We think it is targeted at the right target. It has great, again, affinity for the target. I think it allows us to test whether or not that hypothesis is really the right basis for understanding what causes the disease progression. We are studying it now in mild to moderate, the intended study in prodromal or the pre-Alzheimer's population. I think this is the opportunity again for the fundamental transformation in the field.
I also want you to know that that’s the first of several programs that are aimed at Alzheimer's. We have earlier stage programs. It is just like the first hypertension drugs led in to an era of additional discovery for hypertension. I think we are on the verge of things. So in other words, we are out of time. That’s what really makes me excited about this business, Tim, is that you can go to a fallow period and then the science lines up to give you real great opportunities and application.
I think we are on the verge of that. I think the paths are hard in terms of things like Alzheimer's. I think that the tools are better and my job as CEO of Merck, is to make sure that Merck is positioned in terms of having access to the right program, the right tools, the right leadership and the right talent to be a company that can continue to succeed over the longer term as it has. If you look at 60 years past, you look at Merck has been a positive outlier when it comes to innovation. My job is to set it up to be that in the future...
Timeline?
We have safety analysis due this year for about 200 patients. So we are not talking about a filing next year but we are talking about a filing in the next few years if the data is there. So that’s a good thing."
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