In an interview with Reuters, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said Tuesday that he isn’t sure if the company will continue developing vaccines. He also hinted at potential M&A action.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot/Courtesy Getty Images
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot raised questions Tuesday about the company’s future in vaccines while hinting at potential M&A activity on the near horizon.
In an interview with Reuters, Soriot discussed the company’s plans, which he said include building on its portfolio of antibody therapies. AstraZeneca is also considering bolt-on acquisitions in oncology and cardiovascular areas, Soriot said.
Getting out of the COVID-19 Vaccine Business?
Overall, in the COVID-19 space, the company has shifted its resources to antibody therapies.
Early in the pandemic, in the spring of 2020, AstraZeneca partnered with the University of Oxford to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. The company picked up $1 billion in support from the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and appeared to be well ahead of its competitors. This was partly due to the efforts of Oxford University’s Jenner Institute on a SARS vaccine that had been ongoing for several years. AstraZeneca was able to make a fast pivot, having already had good preclinical safety data for its technology and basic vaccine structure.
Although the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine was authorized and utilized worldwide, it has yet to receive Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in the U.S. It also ran into issues with rare blood clotting causing dozens of countries to temporarily halt distribution in early 2021. As much of the world has become vaccinated, uptake has slowed.
Still, the COVID-19 vaccine was the company’s second best-selling product last year, bringing in $3.9 billion. AstraZeneca reserved a significant proportion of the vaccine intended for low- and middle-income countries and said that profits were not the top priority. “We decided to provide it at no profit, because our top priority was to protect global health,” Soriot stated.
Despite having created a separate division last year for vaccines and antibody therapies, Soriot appeared to be ambivalent about the future of the company’s vaccine efforts. It is working to develop a portfolio of antibody therapies, not only its successful antibody cocktail for COVID-19, Evusheld, but for RSV and other viruses.
In terms of its COVID-19 vaccines business, Soriot said, “I can’t be sure we will be there or not.”
Seeking Bolt-On Opportunities
Meanwhile, the company is looking “for external opportunities,” Soriot told Reuters.
AstraZeneca’s biggest recent acquisition was the completion of the $39 billion Alexion buyout in July 2021. Alexion focuses on rare immune diseases that leverage complement inhibition. AstraZeneca has traditionally focused on oncology, cardiovascular, renal, metabolism and respiratory illness, although it has increased its immunology research and development efforts in recent years.
Over the years, key acquisitions have included MedImmune, and Acerta Pharma, with three assets in oncology, two in rare diseases and one in infectious diseases. The most recent was the July 2022 acquisition of TeneoTwo for about $1.27 billion. TeneoTwo is focused on oncology with an ongoing Phase I clinical trial of T-cell engager TNB-486 in relapsed and refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
ESMO Preview
AstraZeneca made more headlines Wednesday, announcing an ambitious set of presentations at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress being held September 9-13. The company noted that a total of 15 approved and potential new drugs will be featured across more than 75 abstracts in 13 tumor types.
“The momentum will continue for ENHERTU at ESMO with new data across tumor types, including results from the DESTINY-Lung02 Phase II trial in HER2-mutant metastatic non-small cell lung cancer which formed the basis for the recent FDA approval,” Susan Galbraith, EVP, Oncology R&D for AstraZeneca, said. There will also be new analyses presented from two Phase III trials of Imfinzi plus tremelimumab, Himalaya in liver cancer and Poseidon in lung cancer, she added.
