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Takeda is seeking to ease the huge debt burden resulting from the takeover of Shire. Novartis wants to strengthen its portfolio of eye drugs after the split in Alcon. Now, both companies have found an agreement that meets their needs.
As mentioned earlier, Takeda sells Xiidra medicine for Shire's dry eyes. To take this into account, Novartis is disbursing $ 3.4 billion and is planning milestone payments of up to $ 1.9 billion. He offers a therapy that "strategically fits" its portfolio of ophthalmic drugs, said Thursday the Swiss manufacturer of drugs.
The pair expects the contract to be finalized in the second half of this year. Once that happens, nearly 400 Takeda employees associated with Xiidra and based mainly in the United States and Canada will travel to Novartis.
Xiidra, which competes with Allergan's Restasis, generated sales of around $ 400 million last year and is "well positioned for blockbuster potential," Novartis said. In 2018, the entire Novartis ophthalmic ophthalmic franchise, led by Lucentis, a treatment for age-related macular degeneration associated with a Roche-shared blockbuster, yielded $ 4.56 billion , a decrease of 1% over the previous year, mainly due to generic erosions of Travatan and its pink eye, intraocular hypertension. Pataday therapy.
"Xiidra, with its unique dual benefits, is an example of the kind of breakthroughs we are investing in for the benefit of patients," said Paul Hudson, Novartis Pharmaceutical Director, in a statement. "We look forward to leveraging our established commercial infrastructure to bring this drug to more patients."
Novartis has developed its own dry eye treatment under development: ECF843, a recombinant form of human lubricant licensed from Lubris in 2017, is in Phase 2 and is expected to be the first product to be developed. a first regulatory submission in 2022. Following an agreement in late 2016, Novartis concluded Vision and its UNR844, a topical treatment potentially the first of its kind for presbyopia. The Swiss pharmaceutical group relies on the commercial experience of the Xiidra team to help these products in progress.
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The Xiidra agreement represents for Takeda the first total sale since the $ 62 billion takeover of Shire. The Japanese pharmaceutical industry hopes to sell about $ 10 billion worth of products to reduce the debt incurred on the acquisition. Other rumors or affirmations confirmed include his over-the-counter activities in Europe, his entire unit in Latin America, Shire's hypoparathyroid drug, Natpara, and a candidate for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease in Shire .
Takeda also announced the sale of Johnson & Johnson's TachoSil surgical patch to Ethicon for approximately $ 400 million. Takeda achieved a turnover of $ 155 million for the fiscal year ended last March. With the product, about 80 employees will join J & J. Takeda will however retain a manufacturing plant at TachoSil in Linza, Austria, and will continue to supply it to J & J under a long-term contract, Takeda said Wednesday. .
"These initial divestments represent important milestones in the growth strategy that Takeda described following our transformational acquisition of Shire earlier this year," said Christophe Weber, CEO of Takeda, in a statement. The company is currently focusing on the core areas of gastroenterology, rare diseases, plasma-derived therapies, oncology and neuroscience.
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