Glaxo Pays $720M For Fountain Of Youth Pill
10 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // April 22nd, 2008 // 5:02 pm
The deal is the latest by a big drugmaker to scoop up a smaller company with leading technology or simply promising meds, or both. By purchasing Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, which is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Glaxo is getting a company that is immersed in sirtiuns, a newly discovered class of enzymes that are believed to be involved in the aging process.
Last fall, Sirtris created some buzz when a paper in Nature detailed how company researchers successfully treated diabetic mice with a compound that activates an enzyme linked to fundamental metabolic processes. The compound addressed age-related cellular breakdown which, if slowed, may somehow slow aging itself, conjuring up images of a fountain-of-youth pill. Sirtris’ focus so far, though, has been on developing SIRT1 activitators for treating Type 2 diabetes.
Sirtris will become part of Glaxo’s Drug Discovery organisation, while continuing to operate from its Cambridge labs as an autonomous drug discovery unit. Christoph Westphal, Sirtris’ ceo, and the rest of the management team are expected to remain in place, according to the Glaxo statement.
spelling
you spelled sirtis wrong
Ed Silverman
Thanks. Sometimes, I move too quickly. I could use that pill about now.
ed
Eben Tessari
Glaxo paid an 84% premium for a company with a fantastic PR firm and one marginal compound that just started phase 2 development. The facts are these:
- The target has not been shown to increase lifespan in any normal mammals
- There are many sirtuins… activating only SIRT1 has not been shown to do anything in mammals
- Some data in yeast show activating SIRTs actually decreases lifespan
- There is much data to suggest resveratrol doesn’t work through sirtuins at all
- “Aging” is not a disease recognized by the FDA so there should to be a mechanistic reason for choosing an alternate indication (such as diabetes).
-The compound FAILED the only test the FDA cares about for the type-2 diabetes indication: reduction in HbA1c!!
Doug Bremner
Nervousness about maintaining an erection and not having early ejaculation is not an indication for the FDA but that didn’t stop the covert (if not overt) marketing of Viagra and Cialis for those reasons to healthy young men. I guess the point is they need to find something to get it over the FDA threshold, and then they can go bananas with implied messages about aging. They should team up with vitamin and supplement companies like ‘Life Extension’. They have already written monograms about what to do once they have helped people live forever. I for one think that would be boring.
Maybe they could partner with them and make a combined DHEA drug for immortality.
joe johnson
I heard that Sirtris “pill” is big as a banana and take a long time to digest. Hope they have good follow-ons hahah
Do they even have patent coverage on resveratrol?
Amazing deal, $720M for a mediocre pill in Ph 2, and no FTO.
Big Pharma is very desperate, and Chris and his wife are a good PR team.
I Think Sirtris will shelfed as Esperion in 1 year.
Phed-Up
Yikes….their “drugs” don;t even work the way they claim!!!
GSK internal data refutes their MOA’s.
HOLY SHIT!!!!
Bob Freeman
Hmmm. We need to take a normal biological process, Aging, and define it as a disease and then give it initials so people will be able to talk about it at parties. Initials are also necessary to establish it as a “real” medical condition.
Any Ideas for naming the disease?
It will work as long as Americans view death as optional.
Matt
Doesn’t matter if the pill works or not, there will be a huge PR campaign to push the drug and billions will be made because the average consumer is a dullard and will buy anything because there is a commerical for it.
(I just wanted to use dullard in a sentence)
Chris
It’s a very long way from where Sirius is now to getting to market as many here know and so talk of how the public will lap this up is a little premature (but probably accurate).
Resveratrol seems to be one of the enzymes referred to as having the anti-aging properties. Remember the fuss caused a couple of years ago when the Harvard study pointed out this is the same stuff (a poyphenol) found in red wine? In the small print was that a human would have to drink 1,500 litres per day to get the same effect as the mouse did.
Interested to watch how this translates into human clinicals and whether GSK’s rather generous offer pays off.
truthman30
Interesting..
GSK trying to make an anti-aging pill..
One can only imagine the what the side effects will be?
GSK is ingenious when it comes to creating side effects so bizarre that they usually defy medical definition… (google paxil-you will be amazed)
Maybe that’s their true expertise and forte?
Creating imaginative drugs with fantastical side effects for disorders which don’t exist and diseases which are not illnesses?
Bravo Glaxo..