As­traZeneca chief Pas­cal So­ri­ot her­alds the start of a 'pe­ri­od of sus­tained growth for years to come'

As­traZeneca CEO Pas­cal So­ri­ot de­clared vic­to­ry to­day in the long-run­ning fight to turn around the strug­gling phar­ma gi­ant, gain­ing a sig­nif­i­cant spurt in Q3 sales for the com­pa­ny and point­ing to a pe­ri­od of “sus­tained growth” dri­ven by new prod­uct de­vel­op­ment, a strong com­mer­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion and suc­cess in the grow­ing Chi­na drug mar­ket.

Yes, rev­enue slid 14%, large­ly as a re­sult of a lull in the kind of ag­gres­sive “ex­ter­nal­iza­tion” from its drug port­fo­lio that has buoyed the com­pa­ny for years. But with its big 3 can­cer drugs — Lyn­parza, Tagris­so and now Imfinzi — lead­ing the way, the com­pa­ny has a work­able strat­e­gy to keep ex­pand­ing sales. That starts with a 9% in­crease in Q3 while year-to-date there’s been a 2% growth in this col­umn.

By any stan­dard, that is a ma­jor achieve­ment for the com­pa­ny and the ex­ec­u­tive crew in charge. And they $AZN would agree with that.

“To­day marks an im­por­tant day for the fu­ture of As­traZeneca,” So­ri­ot not­ed at the top of to­day’s re­lease, “with the per­for­mance in the quar­ter and year to date show­ing what we ex­pect will be the start of a pe­ri­od of sus­tained growth for years to come. Com­mer­cial ex­e­cu­tion has been ex­cep­tion­al and our new med­i­cines are now firm­ly es­tab­lished as the dri­vers of growth, sup­port­ing our con­tin­ued suc­cess in emerg­ing mar­kets.”

Of all the Big Phar­ma com­pa­nies, As­traZeneca has suf­fered some of the worst loss­es due to gener­ic com­pe­ti­tion for their old fran­chise drugs. That left So­ri­ot bat­ting away a takeover at­tempt by Pfiz­er as he worked to build a new foun­da­tion of drugs that can de­liv­er steadi­ly ris­ing, block­buster re­turns. 

Key to the process was gain­ing an ear­ly, break­through ap­proval for their PARP Lyn­parza, while go­ing on to build new rev­enue by adding sup­ple­men­tal ap­provals. Three more PARPs have now crowd­ed in be­hind As­traZeneca, but the UK com­pa­ny clear­ly has a com­mand­ing lead there. Through its multi­bil­lion-dol­lar part­ner­ship at Mer­ck, As­traZeneca is now in po­si­tion to book hun­dreds of mil­lions in added pay­ments in Q4’s ex­ter­nal­iza­tion col­umn — an­oth­er near term coup.

Tagris­so and Imfinzi, its PD-L1 drug, are both be­ing po­si­tioned for new growth based on clin­i­cal tri­al suc­cess­es. We still haven’t heard about the sec­ond big hur­dle for Imfinzi’s MYS­TIC study, which failed the first goal. But As­traZeneca’s out­line on its growth plans in­cludes a Q4 reg­u­la­to­ry fil­ing — though that out­come has been dis­count­ed now that the PA­CIF­IC study has come through to open up a sig­nif­i­cant new can­cer mar­ket for the com­pa­ny.

Sev­er­al of So­ri­ot’s strate­gies around new prod­uct de­vel­op­ment and sell­ing off as­sets — in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to mar­gin­al or dis­ap­point­ing prod­ucts — is fo­cused around the prin­ci­ple that the com­pa­ny need­ed to sim­pli­fy its ap­proach, con­cen­trat­ing on block­buster, stan­dard-of-care as­sets that could make a ma­jor dif­fer­ence. As­traZeneca un­der­scored that with a 6% drop in R&D ex­pens­es in Q3, even as the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to pur­sue some big out­comes. And its ros­ter of drugs to watch in­cludes their asth­ma drug teze­pelum­ab, which has shown some re­al promise in treat­ing se­vere asth­ma.

At the same time, the phar­ma gi­ant con­tin­ues to win­now out the weak­est drugs from the pipeline.

Two months ago re­searchers bull­ish­ly out­lined the ef­fec­tive­ness of an As­traZeneca drug called vis­tusert­ib com­bined with chemo in treat­ing drug-re­sis­tant cas­es of ovar­i­an and lung can­cer. But in their pipeline up­date to­day the com­pa­ny not­ed it is re­mov­ing the mTOR in­hibitor from Phase II while al­so ax­ing an ear­ly-stage com­bo study with Calquence.

As­traZeneca has had plen­ty of set­backs along the way, and will cer­tain­ly have more to come. But while skep­tics will con­tin­ue to chal­lenge the com­pa­ny on rev­enue and over­all per­for­mance, you can’t ig­nore the im­por­tant achieve­ment So­ri­ot is point­ing to to­day.


Im­age: Pas­cal So­ri­ot. AP IM­AGES

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

FDA ad­vi­sors unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for Bio­gen's ALS drug

A panel of outside advisors to the FDA unanimously recommended that the agency grant accelerated approval to Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen despite the drug failing the primary goal of its Phase III study, an endorsement that could pave a path forward for the treatment.

By a 9-0 vote, members of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee said there was sufficient evidence that tofersen’s effect on a certain protein associated with ALS is reasonably likely to predict a benefit for patients. But panelists stopped short of advocating for a full approval, voting 3-5 against (with one abstention) and largely citing the failed pivotal study.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Sanofi, Re­gen­eron boast PhI­II win with Dupix­ent in COPD, clear­ing first bar for ex­pan­sion

Dupixent, the blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug from Sanofi and Regeneron, has cleared a high-stakes Phase III study in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the companies announced Thursday morning.

If they hold up in a second, identical trial, the data pave the way for Dupixent to become the first biologic to treat patients whose COPD remains uncontrolled despite being on maximal standard-of-care inhaled therapy — the patient population studied in the pivotal program. The companies had spotlighted this as a key readout as they look to expand the Dupixent franchise and explore its full potential.

Chat­G­PT with phar­ma da­ta de­buts for med­ical meet­ings, be­gin­ning with AACR

What do you get when you combine ChatGPT generative AI technology with specific pharma and clinical datasets? A time-saving tool that can answer questions about medical conference abstracts and clinical findings in seconds in one new application from ZoomRx called FermaGPT.

ZoomRx is debuting a public version of its generative AI product specifically for medical conferences beginning this week for the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting that runs April 14-19.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Alaa Halawa, executive director at Mubadala’s US venture group

The ven­ture crew at Mubadala are up­ping their biotech cre­ation game, tak­ing care­ful aim at a new fron­tier in drug de­vel­op­ment

It started with a cup of coffee and a slow burning desire to go early and long in the biotech creation business.

Wrapping up a 15-year discovery stint at Genentech back in the summer of 2021, Rami Hannoush was treated to a caffeine-fueled review of the latest work UCSF’s Jim Wells had been doing on protein degradation — one of the hottest fields in drug development.

“Jim and I have known each other for the past 15 years through Genentech collaborations. We met over coffee, and he was telling me about this concept of the company that he was thinking of,” says Hannoush. “And I got immediately intrigued by it because I knew that this could open up a big space in terms of adding a new modality in drug discovery that is desperately needed in pharma.”

Endpoints Premium

Premium subscription required

Unlock this article along with other benefits by subscribing to one of our paid plans.

In­cyte wins ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for PD-1 in rare skin can­cer

Incyte touted an accelerated approval for its PD-1 retifanlimab in a rare skin cancer on Wednesday, roughly a year and a half after the drug suffered a rejection in squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal (SCAC).

Retifanlimab, marketed as Zynyz, was approved for metastatic or recurrent locally advanced Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a fast-growing skin cancer typically characterized by a single, painless nodule. It’s roughly 40 times rarer than melanoma, according to the nonprofit Skin Cancer Foundation — but incidence is growing, particularly among older adults, Incyte said in its announcement.

A new study finds that many patient influencers are sharing prescription drug experiences along with health information.

So­cial me­dia pa­tient in­flu­encers ‘danc­ing in the gray’ of phar­ma mar­ket­ing, more clar­i­ty need­ed, re­searcher says

It’s no surprise that patient influencers are talking about their health conditions on social media. However, what’s less clear is what role pharma companies are playing, how big the patient influencer industry is, and just how is information about prescription drugs from influencers relayed — and received — on social media.

While University of Colorado associate professor Erin Willis can’t answer all those questions, she’s been researching the issue for several years and recently published new research digging into the communication styles, strategies and thinking of patient influencers, many of whom partner with pharma companies.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Drug short­age so­lu­tions brought be­fore Sen­ate Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty com­mit­tee

With more than 300 active drug shortages, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs had its hands full on Wednesday with multiple experts testifying on drug shortages and possible solutions.

A picture of the shortage situation. presented by Erin Fox, an adjunct professor at the College of Pharmacy at the University of Utah, explained how some patients have died due to drug shortages, including with medication errors when substitutes were dosed incorrectly or when an emergency product was not available.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

FDA re­jects Ab­b­Vie's in­fu­sion ther­a­py for Parkin­son's, re­quests more in­fo on pump de­vice

The FDA rejected AbbVie’s 24-hour infusion therapy for Parkinson’s, saying it needs more information on a device used to administer the treatment before it can clear it.

The Chicago-area drugmaker said in a press release that the complete response letter from the agency didn’t include any requests for more efficacy or safety trials related to the drug, known as ABBV-951. The company said it aims to “resubmit the NDA as soon as possible.”

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.