Subscribe to RSSAn Overview of the Alzheimer Drug Market
Publisher’s Note: In light of last week’s failed Phase III trial of Medivation’s Alzheimer’s drug, Dimebon, I’ve asked Anavex Chairman Dr. Cameron Durrant to give us an overview of the Alzheimer’s market. Dr. Durrant has held executive positions at major global pharmaceutical companies, including Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK), GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), and Pharmacia Corporation, now part of Pfizer, Inc. (NYSE: PFE). Most recently, Dr. Durrant spent almost three years as Worldwide Vice President, Infectious Diseases, Global Strategic Marketing at Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ). He has also been CEO of two specialty pharmaceutical companies, PediaMed and Spherics. His article, written exclusively for Wealth Daily readers, is below… Brian Hicks ——————————————————— Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the scourges of modern day health care. There are almost 30 million people worldwide diagnosed with AD — 5 million of them in the United States. That’s the equivalent of almost the entire population of Canada and Finland, respectively. And it is projected to almost quadruple — yes, quadruple — by 2050, with 120 million people affected and to care for. (That’s the same population as the country of Japan, the tenth most populous country on the planet.) This patient population will equate to 1 in 85 of the world’s total population at that time… Clearly, we are sitting on a health care time bomb. There are many reasons for the increase, including an aging population globally, the baby boomer demographic, and earlier and more accurate diagnosis. Some speculate that there are other causes related to environmental issues including food and/or water chain pollutants and other toxins from our modern lifestyles. Not surprisingly, the pharmaceutical and biotech industry and academia have and continue to put a strong emphasis on developing treatments. Imagine a world where there were drugs which slowed the progression… or, better yet, stopped progression… or even helped reverse the disease and its effects, reverting people back to previous levels of functioning. Imagine, if you will, the Holy Grail — a prevention measure that could stop people from ever developing Alzheimer’s… All of the drugs approved so far though merely address some of the symptoms. None of them alter the progression of the disease and in most cases, the beneficial effects of the drugs wear off after time. The market leader, Aricept, is co-marketed by pharma drug giant Pfizer and by the Japanese company that discovered the drug, Eisai. But Aricept goes off patent this year and the multibillion dollar sales pattern it has built will vanish quickly, as generic versions line up for approval and sale this year. There are three other marketed drugs — Exelon by Novartis; Razadyne by J+J; and Namenda by Forrest — all off patent or coming close to it. So what do pharma behemoths like this do? They invest in their own in-house programs and/or turn to outside small companies, biotechs, start-ups, and academic-types to source innovation. That’s what Pfizer did with Medivation to get rights to Medivation’s drug, Dimebon. Unfortunately, Dimebon just failed its pivotal Phase III study, dashing hopes for patients and their caregivers and dropping about a billion dollars off the Medivation market cap. The stock collapsed by 70% within minutes of the news. More on that debacle shortly. For years, researchers considered the fact that since a buildup in the brain of a substance called amyloid — which is deposited as plaques around neurons (brain cells) — is associated with AD, that this could actually be the …
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An Overview of the Alzheimer Drug Market
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