May 17, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
After yesterday’s announcement that Pfizer is acquiring Palo Alto, California-based Anacor Pharmaceuticals for $5.2 billion, analysts are now attempting to piece together Pfizer’s strategy and determine how the acquisition fits into it.
For the most part, there appears to be three possibilities: Pfizer is acquiring the company for its current assets and pipeline; Pfizer is acquiring Anacor for its products and pipeline in preparation for a split into two or three separate companies; and, Pfizer acquired Anacor not for its assets and pipeline, but for its discovery engine.
Anacor has a single product on the market, Kerydin cream, to treat toenail fungus. It is marketed by Novartis ’ Sandoz unit in the U.S. Although it generates income, it doesn’t seem worth the money Pfizer plunked down for the company, so it’s likely a secondary consideration. In its 2015 financial report on Feb. 29, 2016, Anacor indicated yearly distribution and commercialization revenue was $69.7 million, recognizing $60.5 million of gross profit of Kerydin, as reported by Sandoz.
Anacor’s top pipeline product, crisaborole, for the treatment of eczema, is a much bigger deal, potentially. It’s expected to be approved at the beginning of 2017 and would likely go head-to-head with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals ’s dupilumab, which is expected to be approved later this year. Dupilumab, however, is an injectable therapy. Analysts think the two drugs could have combined global sales of over $9 billion.
Gil Yosipovitch, chairman of dermatology at Temple University School of Medicine, suggested to Reuters that about 60 to 80 percent of patients would be candidates for Anacor’s drug, while Regeneron’s dupilumab would be more likely appropriate for patients with more severe disease.
“Until a few years ago, I don’t think we had any message of hope for eczema patients who have tried everything,” said Yosipovitch. “Now we do.”
Costs will play a factor. Regeneron’s dupilumab would probably have a $25,000 annual price tag. Analysts suggest, partly due to the price, that dupilumab would likely take in $6 billion in sales, whereas Anacor’s drug would likely be priced at $1,200 per year with peak sales of about $3 billion.
Since the Pfizer-Allergan deal collapsed, Pfizer has been looking at strategic acquisitions, although the strategy isn’t completely clear. It is clear that the company needs to bolster its patented drugs portfolio. Enbrel, for spondylitis, psoriasis and arthritis, expired in 2012 and has lost market share ever since. Celebrex’s patent expired in 2014, and showed a drop in sales of 69 percent in 2015. Lipitor, Pfizer’s blockbuster cholesterol drug, dropped 7 percent in the first quarter of 2015, and is being battered by generics, as well as new, but pricey, cholesterol drugs like Praluent and Repatha.
But it’s not like Pfizer doesn’t have promising products in its own pipeline. It has 202 compounds in 93 clinical trials in 39 therapeutic areas.
But before, during and after the Allergan-Pfizer timeline, Pfizer was discussing eventually breaking the company into at least two companies, one focused on mature brands, and one focused on newer, faster-growing drugs. Its 2015 acquisition of Hospira, worth about $16.8 billion, would likely strengthen the mature brands company. This newer acquisition of Anacor would likely strengthen the faster-growing company.
However, an analyst who goes by the name DoctoRx, writing for Seeking Alpha, speculates that Pfizer’s real interest in Anacor wasn’t Kerydin or even Eucrisa (crisaborole), but the company’s discovery engine.
He compares Anacor’s discovery engine to that of Regeneron’s VelociSuite discovery engine, which has been quite successful in identifying molecules that have led to Praluent, Arcalyst, Eylea and Zaltrap.
