It seems that the spectre of an an ‘L’ shaped or even ‘double-dip’ recession is still with us as the economic recovery in the Eurozone faltered to a crawl - with its gross domestic product (GDP) growing by 0.1 per cent in the final quarter of 2009.
According to preliminary figures released by DEStatis, the German Federal Statistical Office, Germany’s recovery lost momentum in the last three months of 2009 and stagnated at the same level as it had in the third quarter.
Meanwhile, the French economy grew 0.6 per cent during the last three months of 2009, while Greece and Spain remained in recession, with the Greek economy shrinking 0.8 per cent. Not the news that Europe’s leaders needed to hear with fears about Greece’s huge budget deficit hitting the headlines and dragging the value of the Euro down.
PHARMACEUTICALS
NICE refuses yet more cancer drugs
The UK’s National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) has decided that the National Health Service (NHS) can not afford to pay for two more cancer drugs - Novartis’ Tasigna (nilotinib) and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Spreycel (dasatinib). Other than the high price of the drugs which cost around $50,000 a year (£32,500 ), NICE also complained about the lack of head-to-head trials with other currently licensed therapies.
‘The Committee heard from clinical specialists that in their opinion dasatinib and nilotinib are clinically effective. However, the evidence available to support this was very poor, with no studies comparing either drug to other treatments,’ said Professor Peter Littlejohns, Clinical and Public Health Director at NICE.
‘The cost of the drugs is also extremely high and before committing limited NHS resources to fund them, we need to be sure they are effective. It would be heartening to hear that the pharmaceutical company manufacturers are prepared to share some of the very high cost of the drugs with the NHS.’
AZ gets Crestor boost
AstraZeneca (AZ) has received a big boost from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which has said that its cholesterol lowering drug Crestor (rosuvastatin) can be marketed as a preventative not just a treatment. The approval will mean that AZ will be better placed to fight off rival statins that are going off patent - including Pfizer’s Lipitor (atorvastatin).
The ruling was based on the huge Jupiter clinical study that was designed to see how Crestor worked in people who had normal levels of cholesterol but who had elevated levels of C-reactive protein - an inflammation indicator and a precursor to full-blown cardiovascular disease. The study found that patients taking Crestor were at a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular problems than those taking a placebo.
This means that AZ now has access to a huge new market for the drug - estimated to contain some 6 million potential patients - and because no other statin has been approved as a preventative, AZ has it all to itself.
Sanofi-Aventis joins the R&D chopping crowd
Sanofi-Aventis has seen its sales for the year increase 6.3 per cent to €29.3 billion (£25.6 billion) compared to last year’s figures, aided by large gains from its consumer healthcare business as well as growth in emerging markets and its diabetes and vaccine franchises. Despite selling and administration costs increasing 2.2 per cent to €7.3 billion operating profits grew 14.2 per cent to €11.2 billion.
R&D spend for the year was virtually stable at €4.6 billion, however the company said that ’cost savings in pharmaceuticals R&D, coupled with the impact of previously announced project terminations, offset a 14.5 per cent increase in R&D spend in vaccines’.
The company’s fourth quarter R&D spending started to show those cuts, with spending dropping 7 per cent to €1.2 billion - despite the development costs associated with acquired companies’ research programmes.
Dimebon helps you think more clearly
According to new research published in the Archives of Neurology, dimebon (latrepirdine) an experimental drug being developed for Alzheimer’s disease may help sufferers of Huntington’s Disease think more clearly.
The drug, originally developed as an antihistamine, is currently being developed by San Francisco-based Medivation in collaboration with Pfizer. As reported in Chemistry World in July, the drug’s mechanism of action is causing quite a stir as it seems to be turning the ‘amyloid hypothesis’ on its head.
INDUSTRY
Air Products gets hostile
Air Products has taken its takeover bid for Airgas direct to the company’s shareholders after Airgas’s board decided to knock back Air Products’s unsolicited advances. As reported earlier this week inChemistry World, Airgas had already knocked back two bids for the company which had not been made public before Air Products went public with its $7 billion takeover bid.‘It is unfortunate that the Airgas board continues to just say no to Air Products’ $60 per share all-cash offer,’ said Air Products in a statement. ‘This continuing refusal to discuss our compelling all-cash premium offer has left us with no alternative but to take the offer directly to Airgas shareholders.’
Airgas does have a few anti-takeover defences at its disposal and will no doubt be employing them all before the company’s war of words condenses into a resolution one way or the other.
Totally down
Total’s chemical unit saw sales for the year fall 27 per cent to €14.7 billion after being dragged down by a 34 per cent drop in sales of base chemicals throughout the year. Operating profits for the unit saw a 71 per cent drop to €249 million compared to 2008’s full year €873 million - with the low sales of base chemicals dragging down the segment’s profitability to €16 million, 95 per cent lower than in 2008.The company said it will continue to adapt its activities in mature areas of the downstream and chemicals arena and reinforce its portfolio in growing markets ‘notably with the construction of the Jubail refinery and the benefit from the start-up of a new ethane cracker in Qatar’.
As a whole, the company saw sales fall 27 per cent to €131.3 billion and operating profits fall 46 per cent to €7.6 billion.
Solvay launches Asian R&D centres
Following on from its previously announced decision to ‘move closer to Asia’, Solvay has announced the location of three new research, development and technology centres that will be based in India, Korea and China. Each centre will focus on ‘customer-tailored innovation’ with the centre in India focusing its efforts on high-performance polymers, organic chemistry, nano-composites, biotechnology and green chemistry.
Likewise, the other centres will focus on research areas of particular interest for their regions, with the Korean centre looking to assist customers in ‘high growth markets such as electronics, lithium ion batteries and photovoltaic cells’.
OPX: ‘bioacrylic close’
Boulder, US-based biotechnology firm OPX Biotechnologies has said that it is on track to having a commercially viable bioacrylic production method in place by the end of 2010. According to the company, the introduction of biologically derived acrylic will offer a more economical and sustainable alternative to fossil fuel-based acrylic, the market for which is currently estimated to be worth some $8 billion.
Since starting up a pilot scale plant the company says it has reduced the costs of the process by 85 per cent - by using its efficiency directed genome engineering (Edge) technology to rapidly develop a microbe and bioprocess. The company claims that, when fully optimised, the bioprocess will produce bioacrylic at the rate, concentration and yield needed for full commercialisation.‘We have always been very confident that OPX’s genome engineering technology, called Edge, would allow us to develop commercially viable microbes faster than the traditional approaches,’ said Michael Lynch, OPX’s chief scientific officer.
‘The fact that we were able to reduce the effective cost of our bioacrylic by more than 85 percent in just six months of pilot work confirms the power of Edge.’
OPX is planning to build a demonstration facility in 2011 and to build its first commercial plant in 2013.
Sigma-Aldrich sidesteps the recession
A 12 per cent increase in fourth quarter sales, which rose to $572 million, helped Sigma-Aldrich minimise the impact of the recession on its full year results. Fourth quarter sales were up across all of the company’s divisions - with the gains made in its Research Biotech and SAFC fine chemicals units.
For the year, sales were down 2.4 per cent at $2.1 billion, with all units suffering from the economic downturn. The company’s Research Essentials were least affected with sales dropping 0.8 per cent to $418 million. Operating profit for the year fell to $500 million, just 0.8 per cent down on the previous year’s figure.
‘Our strategy of helping researchers increase the quality of life through our focused offerings of innovative laboratory products and services in the areas of life science and materials science is giving us the opportunity to elevate our growth,’ said Jai Nagarkatti, the company’s chief executive.‘In the fourth quarter, our teams around the world helped achieve improved growth in both the research and fine chemicals businesses as we continued to make the necessary investments in new and innovative products to expand our offering in the life science and high technology markets we serve.’
Matt Wilkinson
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