RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) boosts biological drugs March 11, 2024 - Pfizer’s cancer drugs in mid-stage development are still to show pivotal clinical trial data and become less risky. Pfizer also highlighted a huge shift in its drug pipeline strategy.
Pfizer's CEO Chriss Boshoff said the oncology division plans to shift to biologic drugs as its main source of revenue, increasing the proportion of those treatments in its pipeline from 6% to 65% by 2030.
Biologics are treatments derived from living sources such as animals or humans, including vaccines, stem cell treatments and gene therapies. They are among the most expensive prescription drugs in the U.S.
Before the Seagen deal, 94% of Pfizer’s cancer products were small-molecule drugs. Those medicines are made of chemicals and have low molecular weights.
Boshoff said biologics represent “a more durable revenue potential” based on several factors. That includes upcoming patent expirations and potential pressure from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
A provision of that law allows Medicare to start negotiating the prices of biologics as early as 13 years after they receive Food and Drug Administration approval, compared with just nine years for small-molecule drugs. The pharmaceutical industry has argued that would deter drugmakers from investing in small molecules.
Pfizer’s decision to rely more on biologics may also offer “better protection” against competition from cheaper copycats, Guggenheim analysts said in their note. Those copycats, or biosimilars, have historically had trouble gaining market share from biologic treatments. That’s unlike with drugs called generics, which are exact copies of small-molecule treatments.
Small molecules will remain one of three core drug types of Pfizer’s oncology division. The other two are biologics, namely bispecific antibodies, and antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs.
Pfizer expects breast cancer’s contribution to total oncology sales to drop to about 10% by 2030 from roughly 40% last year, the company’s oncology commercial chief Suneet Varma said during the event.
That decline accounts for the upcoming loss of exclusivity of top-seller Ibrance, which raked in $4.75 billion in sales in 2023.
But the company said it has a handful of breast cancer drugs in development that could become “potential growth drivers” as Ibrance sales fall. That includes a certain type of treatment called atirmociclib (a CDK/4/6 inhibitor) that could potentially be more effective and easier for patients to tolerate.
Pfizer is testing the medicine as a second-line treatment for a certain type of breast cancer in a phase three trial. A second-line therapy is given when an initial treatment doesn’t work or stops working.
The company also plans to start a separate late-stage trial on atirmociclib as a first treatment for the same condition in the second half of the year.
As has been posted on this message board many times, ONCY's pelareorep is biologic that is synergistic in combination with the small molecule CDK 4/6 inhibitors, along with PD-(L)1 checkpoint inhibitors, bispecifics, gene and cell therapies (i.e. CAR-T therapy), and antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), as examples.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/10/pfizer-is-betting-big-on-cancer-drugs-after-covid-decline.html