Q1 results in Pharma and New strategy to stay in the competition 

April 22 

Novartis and GSK swap their oncology (valued up to $16 billion) and vaccines business (valued at $ 7.1bn) and form a world-leading consumer healthcare joint-venture between both companies. The deal between Novartis and GSK should be considered as transformational and will undoubtedly impact the European Pharma industry. 

At the same time Novartis sells it animal healthcare business to Eli Lilly for $4.5 billion. 

April 23

Allergan has adopted a poison pill plan to counter a hostile $47B from Valeant.

Gilead 2014 Q1 net profit more than tripled to $2.2 B boosted by sales of its Hepatitis C pill Sovaldi.

April 24

Novartis 2014 Q1 net profit jumps 24% to $3Bn and beats consensus of$2.7 B mainly boosted by new drugs such as cancer treatment Affinitor and multiple sclerosis pill Gilenya. Sales in emerging market, particularly China all supported the level of earnings. 

AstraZeneca misses Earning Per Share (EPS) consensus with flat 2014 Q1 revenues. Core operating profit decrease 11% to $1.95 Bn US

FDA approves Janssen’s Sylvant (siltuximab) to treat patients with a rare disorder Multicentric Castelam’s disease (MCD), the first treatment to be approved for this condition. 

April 25

Celgene licences Nogra Pharma Crohn’s drug in a potential $2.6B deal. The drug is expected to enter a late –stage clinical trial by the end of 2014. Under the terms of the deal Nogra will get $710 million upfront and up to $815 million in milestones plus up to $1.05 billion in royalties.

April 27

Merck is supposed to enter negotiations to sell its consumer healthcare business for almost $14B according to a Reuters report.

April 28

Pfizer confirms interest in buying AstraZeneca for as much as $100B. AstraZeneca declined to pursue negotiations.

FDA has granted Roche approval for its human papillomavirus assay to be used as first-line cervical cancer screening for women at least 25 years old.

The European Commission approves GSK Incruse (uneclidinium) as a once-daily bronchodilator in adult patient with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Incruse is a long acting muscarinic antagonist delivered by the Ellipta inhaler.

April 29

Sanofi 2014 Q1 profit rises 9.6% to € 1 .08B but revenue fell 2.6% to €7.48B. Vaccines were down 9.9%, animal health was down 6.7%. Diabetes was up by 13%.

Allergan is preparing a new takeover approach to Sire. This would also help the company in its defense against the hostile acquisition offer from Valeant Pharma.

FDA approves Novartis Zykadia (ceritinib) as treatment for patients with late stage non-small cell lung cancer four months ahead of schedule.

Author : Jean-Claude MULLER, Special Advisor,Innovation & International Relationship (I&IR)

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