| | | |   | Hello, everyone. Damian here with Pfizer's plans to clear a patent cliff, Eli Lilly's future in Alzheimer's disease, and a look at the CRISPR company that didn't quite blast off. | | | ‘Post-Covid’ Pfizer needs its deals to pay off Pfizer is still minting billions of dollars from its vaccine and oral treatment for Covid-19, but looking beyond 2025, the company will need to make some shrewd investments to plug a massive hole in revenue.
On yesterday’s third-quarter earnings call, CEO Albert Bourla said the “post-Covid-crisis” Pfizer will face a $17 billion revenue decline as banner products like the blood-thinner Eliquis and cancer medicine Ibrance lose patent protection. The company plans to add at least $25 billion in sales through business development, with about one-third of that coming from recent acquisitions of companies including BioHaven and Arena Pharmaceuticals and the rest from deals yet to be signed.
Pfizer should have plenty of cash to fund its expansion, as Covid is proving to be a more resilient business than Wall Street expected. Pfizer’s vaccine brought in $4.4 billion on the quarter, beating analysts’ estimates by about 80%, and Paxlovid, the company’s antiviral medicine, contributed $7.5 billion. | Lilly has yet another Alzheimer’s treatment on the way The surprise success of Eisai and Biogen’s Alzheimer’s disease lecanemab has ratcheted up expectations for Eli Lilly’s competing donanemab, expected to have pivotal data next year. But Lilly has already started a Phase 3 study for what analysts have dubbed “donanemab 2.0,” which could have preliminary data as early as next year.
The drug is called remternetug, and, like donanemab and lecanemab, it’s an antibody targeting amyloid plaques in the brain. But unlike those medicines, which are dosed intravenously, remternetug is injected just under the skin, akin to Roche’s anti-amyloid medicine gantenerumab. Earlier this year, Lilly began a one-year, 400-patient study to determine whether its new medicine can significantly reduce amyloid levels in the brains of patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s.
While it’s unclear whether gantenerumab, whose Phase 3 data are expected any day now, and donanemab will actually work, Lilly’s bet on remternetug reflects a possible future in which the standard of care for Alzheimer’s relies on subcutaneous medicines. Eisai is at work on an under-the-skin formulation of lecanemab, and analysts expect donanemab, if it succeeds in Phase 3, to have a commercial advantage over its intravenous rivals. | The ‘Innovator’s Burden’: how to navigate a skeptical Healthcare industry While the industry loves true innovations – and the brilliant minds who envision them – being an innovator is not for the faint of heart. We call it the "Innovator’s Burden." Understanding the challenges, planning for them, and using proven communications strategies, the Innovator’s Burden can be eased, and the company can realize the potential of their discovery. It’s not easy, mind you, but maybe it’s not supposed to be. | A CRISPR laggard looks to the future While multiple generations of CRISPR companies command multibillion-dollar valuations, one of the originals, Editas Medicine, trades below its IPO price after years of management upheaval and clinical delay.
This is the year things are supposed to even out for Editas, whose new leadership team will take to the microphone later this morning to explain why the future will be steadier than the past. Gilmore O’Neill, the company’s fourth CEO in its eight years of existence, took over in June, and Baisong Mei, Editas’ fourth chief medical officer, joined in July.
The company has lost more than 80% of its value since last year, when its lead CRISPR-based treatment, targeting a genetic disease that leads to blindness, appeared to have only moderate effects. Editas pivoted to a higher dose, and the company has promised an update on that treatment and a CRISPR-based therapy for sickle cell disease before the end of the year. | More reads - J&J to buy heart pump maker Abiomed for $16.6 billion ahead of consumer health spinoff, Reuters
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| Thanks for reading! Until tomorrow,  | | | |
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