June 8, 2017
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Johnson & Johnson appears to be planning some big moves with its pharma pipeline. The company reportedly hired Merck ’s Mathai Mammen to helm J&J’s research and development unit.
Mammen will replace Bill Hait who is taking over the reins of external innovation at J&J, Endpoints first reported this morning. According to the Endpoints report, Mammen will join Johnson & Johnson later this month, then assume the reins of the R&D unit in 2018.
Mammen will be stepping into his new role as Johnson & Johnson plans an ambitious plan to launch 10 new products that have blockbuster potential by 2021. Additionally, the company also has more than 50 line extensions on existing and new medicines planned.
Mammen certainly has the experience to guide J&J’s $7 billion research & development plans. At Merck, Mammen oversaw R&D for cardiovascular, metabolic diseases, immunology, oncology and immuno-oncology. Prior to his role at Merck, Mammen was in charge of R&D at Theravance for more than 16 years. Mammen was a co-founder of Theravance in 1997 and remained with the company until 2016 when he moved over to Merck.
When J&J announced its blockbuster dreams Alex Gorsky, J&J’s chairman and chief executive officer, noted that the company’s pharmaceutical business will “be a significant driver of innovation and growth” for the foreseeable future.
“With our proven global commercial capabilities and robust pipeline, we are well-positioned to continue delivering strong, long-term, sustainable growth,” Gorsky said in a statement at the time of the announcement.
J&J has already filed for approval of psoriasis drug guselkumab and sirukumab for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.
J&J is no stranger to growth through its pharma business. Since 2011, J&J and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals has received regulatory clearance for 11 new molecular entities from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. As BioSpace has previously reported, J&J’s pipeline is focused on five core areas —immunology, infectious diseases and vaccines, neuroscience, cardiovascular and metabolism, and oncology. When J&J completes its acquisition of Actelion , the company will add a sixth core area, pulmonary arterial hypertension.
In addition to developing its own pipeline, Endpoints’ John Carroll noted that Paul Stoffels, J&J’s chief scientific officer, has been busy creating a network of agents to scour the globe for potential licensing or partnership deals. In May, Janssen inked a deal worth nearly $1 billion with Protagonist Therapeutics (PTGX) to develop the company’s treatment for a variety of gastrointestinal diseases, including Crohn’s and inflammatory bowel syndrome. The two companies are joining forces to develop and market PTG-200, Protagonist’s first-in-class, oral peptide Interleukin-23 receptor antagonist.
One month before the deal with Protagonist, Janssen struck a deal with Tokyo-based PeptiDream to develop peptide-based therapies to target multiple metabolic and cardiovascular targets. The two companies will use PeptiDream’s proprietary Peptide Discovery Platform System (PDPS) technology to identify macrocyclic/constrained peptides against the metabolic and cardiovascular targets identified by Janssen.
Shares of Johnson & Johnson are up slightly this morning, trading at $131.06 as of 9:37 a.m.
