February 24, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
INDIANAPOLIS – Instead of looking to grow the size and scope of its operations, Eli Lilly and Company is focusing on treating Alzheimer’s disease and cardiovascular disease with high-risk experimental drug treatments that some call “moon shots”.
In an interview with the Financial Times of London, Eli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter touted the financial and clinical possibilities of these experimental trials if the medications pan out the way company officials hope.
Currently the company is conducting clinical trials on Solanezumab, a medication that aims to prevent the build up of brain plaque, which some believe may be a cause of Alzheimer’s. While an earlier trial failed to show the medication improved cognitive abilities in patients, Lechleiter told the Times he believes the company is on the right track – a track that could yield a large financial windfall for the company given the disease impacts more than five million people in the United States alone.
Additionally the company is banking on another “moon shot” drug that would treat heart disease through increasing so-called good cholesterol, while at the same time decreasing the “bad” cholesterol. Other pharmaceutical companies, including Roche and Pfizer Inc. , have abandoned similar studies, but Lechleiter told the Times he believes the medication could become an important drug in the fight against cardiovascular disease, if the clinical trial data bears out. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 610,000 people die from cardiovascular disease annually, one in every four deaths.
On Monday the company announced it will delay submission of basal insulin peglispro (BIL) to regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company said the delay will allow the company to generate additional clinical data to “further understand and characterize the potential effects, if any, of changes in liver fat observed with BIL treatment in the Phase III trials.” The company sad they cannot specify how long the clinical trials will take, but believe the drug can be submitted to the FDA sometime in 2016.
The company reported fourth quarter revenues declined 12 percent due to a combination of U.S. patent expirations for Cymbalta and Evista and the negative impact of foreign exchange rates. Full year revenues for 2014 were down 15 percent to $19.6 billion, the company reported.
While revenues were down for 2014, the company launched a combination of Cyramza (ramucirumab) and docetaxel, for the treatment of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer with disease progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy.
During 2014 Eli Lilly announced partnerships with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and Merck & Co. to see if drugs to treat various cancers produced by those companies would work well with oncology medications developed by Eli Lilly and Company. The company also announced an agreement with French-based Adocia to develop an “ultra-rapid insulin” known as BioChaperone Lispro for treatment in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
BioSpace Temperature Poll
Analyst Mark Schoenebaum, a biotech and pharmaceuticals analyst and medical doctor for ISI Group Evercore, has been running a Best Hair in Biopharma contest for several months now. So far, the candidates are Bristol-Myers Squibb Company‘s John Elicker, Receptos’ Chief Executive Officer Faheem Hasnain, Celgene‘s Vice President of Investor Relations Patrick Flanigan and Acorda Therapeutics’ Ron Cohen.
We want to know what our BioSpace community thinks: Who do you believe actually has the Best Hair in BioPharma?
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