AstraZeneca Has No Stomach For GI Disease
3 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // February 11th, 2008 // 10:24 am
The drugmaker, which is already feeling queasy about its pipeline problems, is considering the sale of certain early-stage research projects looking at gastrointestinal disease, according to PharmaTimes, which cites a report in Dagens Industri, a Swedish newspaper.
The paper writes that AstraZeneca is in talks with other drugmakers and venture capital firms to sell up to five projects from its gastrointestinal unit and claims the sale could be worth more than $153 million. The newspaper also noted that AstraZeneca may spin off the unit and seek a separate stock exchange listing. The projects are based at the firm’s facility Molndal, near Gothenberg, in Sweden, where it employs 2,000 researchers. About 500 of those employees on gastro-intestinal products, says Dagens Industri.
An AstraZeneca spokesman declined to comment to PharmaTimes, though he did note that AstraZeneca is always looking for ways to make its research efforts more efficient and also increase shareholder value.
Skeptical
Spin it all they want this is a fire sale of assets, not a good sign although it gets costs of a non-producing asset off the books. Have seen this in other companies.
Company is in deep trouble.
ol cranky
Interesting that the therapeutic area with the biggest blockbusters is first to sell (especially with a combo GI tolerant pain med on the horizon). I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that GI was the only therapeutic area pretty much run from the US.
Skeptical
GERD is mostly a US “disease”, created by an aggressive marketing department pushing a lifestyle drug on passive physicians. H2-antagonists had a similar day in the sun and were displaced by patent expiries and an “innovation.”
In fairness, PAD is basically European disease that is now being positioned for the US market.
It’s a dead therapeutic class but may be of interest to niche pharmas. Maybe
The spin off of assets isn’t a new idea: It’s still an asset sale, whether it’s a separate stock or an outright sale.