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On the heels of yesterday’s announcement that it wants to buy Genentech, Roche, in a surprise move, announced today that it will move its Nutley, NJ-based US corporate headquarters to California. According to a report, research and development activities in oncology and metabolism at the Nutley site will be expanded. However, the company will consolidate all Nutley-based finance and information-technology operations and close manufacturing facilities on the site by 2010. It is not clear how many of Roche’s 3,240 New Jersey employees will be affected by the proposed move to South San Francisco. Suffice it to say, more than a few Roche employees are likely to lose their jobs after the company’s headquarters heads west.

Once dubbed the”nation's medicine chest”, New Jersey has steadily been losing pharmaceutical jobs since 1990 when 20% of all US pharmaceutical jobs were in NJ—at present 13.7% of  American pharmaceutical jobs reside in NJ. It has been a long, slow burn for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology workforce in the Garden State.

The Roche announcement comes as several other New Jersey drug makers, including Schering-Plough and Johnson & Johnson's Ortho Biotech unit, have been laying off workers because of the economic downturn and tough times in the industry. It also comes several days after Barr Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Montvale, announced that it is being acquired for $7.5 billion by Israeli generics giant Teva.  

The growing scarcity of pharmaceutical and biotechnology jobs coupled with the highest property taxes in the US may cause a mass migration from the state. Not that there is anything wrong with that!!!!!!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!

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At lunch the other day, I was telling a bunch of people about how brilliant Roche’s biotechnology strategy has been for the past 20 years or so. All of this changed for me on Monday, when Roche announced that it wanted to buy the remaining shares of Genentech that it already doesn’t own for $ 43.7 billion —Roche currently owns 56% of Genentech’s stock. More importantly, Roche doesn’t have control of Genentech’s board of directors nor does it influence corporate strategy or product development.

Unlike many other pharma companies who have historically purchased  biotechnology companies and then integrated them into existing corporate structures, Roche previously opted to buy controlling interests in companies and then allowed them to continue to operate independently with little corporate input or guidance. Unlike pharma culture, which is very structured and inherently conservative, the most successful biotechnology companies have been built on cultures that promote creativity and “thinking outside the box”.   If Roche buys Genentech and attempts to integrate it into the existing Roche family of companies, I suspect that all of this will change dramatically.

For the past 30 years or so, Genentech has been one of the brightest stars in the biotechnology universe.  Genentech’s management team worked long and hard to implement and maintain a vision that was formulated way back in the late 1970s when the company was first formed. Even though it is the world’s largest and most financially successful biotechnology company, Genentech has steadfastly resisted the temptation to go “corporate” and has worked diligently to maintain its “biotechnology identity” —symbolized by innovation, creativity and employee-centric policies.

I have no doubt that if the Roche-Genentech deal is approved, there will be a mass exodus of talent from the company. Based on my experience, a publicly-treaded biotechnology employee’s greatest fear is the dreaded corporate takeover! I have yet to meet a biotechnology company employee who is willing to sacrifice freedom and creativity (despite a possible financial upside) for more structure, discipline and an endless plethora of rules! 

In my opinion, the deal makes sense for Roche—competition in the cancer space is intense and they want to hedge their future success on Genentech’s oncology franchise. In the best case scenario, Roche will buy Genentech but allow it to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary with an independent management team that spends as little time in Basel as possible. I think the old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is particularly apt here!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

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Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) directed against vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptors on cancer cells, have been found to slow the growth of a variety of cancers including colorectal, breast and lung.  While a number of blockbuster biotechnology products( based on these MAbs (Avastin by Genentech/Roche and Eribitux by Bristol-Myers Squibb/ImClone/Merck KGA) have been approved to treat a variety of different cancers their effectiveness as cancer treatments has been the subject of intense debate since their approvals.

Although numerous human clinical trials have shown that VEGF inhibitors slow the growth and development of tumors, they, as a class, don’t seem to significantly increase the survival time for most cancer patients. Further, Avastin and Erbitux are generally not used as stand alone treatments but are used in combination with more tradition anti-cancer chemotherapies. The high costs of these drugs, (Avastin’s worldwide sales hit $ 3.5 billion last year) and their variable effectiveness have caused many to question the usefulness of this class of drugs to treat cancer patients.

The well-publicized use of these drugs as cancer treatments coupled with anecdotal evidence about their effectiveness has put practicing oncologists between a rock and a hard place when it comes to treating patietns with cancer. In an article in Sunday’s New York Times one prominent oncologist said that depsite the controversy,  “I still use Avastin routinely. It’s not a slam dunk and, in fact, the incremental benefit may be more modest than we want to admit.” Others are more sanguine about VEGF inhibitors as cancer treatments “Even when these drugs ‘work,’ what kind of impact are you talking about?” said Fran Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition. But we market them and give them to everybody.”  

Nevertheless, most oncologists find it difficult to withhold Avastin or Erbitux from cancer patients seeking hope. As one oncologist put it “ When I am not sitting in front of a patient, I think about whether drugs like Avastin are worth it to society. But when facing a seriously ill patient, who, based on clinical trial results, might benefit — even if only a little — from Avastin, I think about the patient’s needs.” 

Regardless of their therapeutic value, the main issue with this class of anti-cancer drugs is cost. Avastin treatment costs patients about $4000-$9000 per month— Eribitux treatment is even more costly! While Medicare and most private insurers cover 80% of the cost, patients can be responsible for 20% or more of treatmetn costs.  As posited in the Times article “If Avastin were inexpensive or if it cured cancer or even held it at bay, as the drug Gleevec does for blood cancer, few might care.”

Are anti-VEGF drugs real cancer treatments or expensive red herrings? Clearly, the jury is still out on that one. That said, I think that only cancer patients can truly provide an accurate response to that question!

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!

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Roche Diagnostics plans to transfer about 300 jobs from its Indianapolis facility to Germany over the next three years as part of a consolidation plan.

A Roche spokesperson announced yesterday that transfers will start in October and most will be completed by 2011. A limited number of employees will be offered transfers to Germany, but most will be laid off.

Most of the positions are in research and development of reagents, which are chemicals used in test kits for HIV, West Nile virus and other diseases. The company says about 85 percent of production for the unit affected by the transfers is already in Germany. Roche has about 2,800 employees in Indianapolis.

Like other sectors of the US economy, the pharmaceutical sector is getting whacked.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting??????

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There are currently two injectable products on the market that are used to treat chronic Hepatitis C infections. Both products, PEG-INTRON (Schering Plough) and Pegasys (Roche) are PEGylated versions of the cytokine interferon-alpha that are used in combination with ribavarin (an orally-delivered small molecule drug) to treat patients infected with Hepatitis C virus.  

PEG-INTRON (peginterferon alpha-2b) was co-developed by Schering Plough and Enzon in the early 1990s and brought to market in 2000. Pegasys (peginterferon alpha-2a) , which use a different chemistry to attach PEG to interferon-alpha, was approved in early 2002 and quickly supplanted PEG-INTRON as a treatment of choice for Hepatitis C infections. Pegasys also gained approval in 2005 to treat chronic Hepatitis B infections.

The knock on PEG-INTRON was that it appeared to lose potency in liquid form (a claim that has always been denied by Schering and Enzon). Nevertheless, PEG-INTRON was supplied to patients as a sterile powder which had to be reconstituted prior to injection. In contrast, Pegasys was supplied in liquid form in pre-filled self injection pens to infected patients. This was possible because the PEG chemistry used to create Pegasys was found to be extremely stable (as compared with PEG-Intron?) in liquid form. Although there appeared to be no real differences in efficacy between PEG-INTRON and Pegasys to treat Hepatitis C infections, patients tended to prefer Pegasys over PEG-INTRON because it was easier and more convenient to use.

Schering Plough has been struggling for the past 5 years or so to recapture the market share that it lost following Pegasys’ introduction in late 2002. To that end, in 2003 the company received FDA approval for a pre-filled injection pen to administer PEG-INTRON. Further, to dispel any rumors regarding PEG-Intron’s efficacy relative to Pegasys, Schering decided to conduct two large head-to-head clinical studies that compared PEG-Intron or Pegasys in combination with ribavarin as treatments for Hepatitis C patients. Today, Schering-Plough announced the results of the first of these two large scale clinical studies called IDEAL. The results from the IDEAL study showed that PEG-Intron was just as effective as Pegasys for treating patients with Hepatitis C. Further, it appeared that fewer patients taking PEG-INTRON relapsed after treatment.

It is not clear whether Schering will win the war but the company certainly appears to have won this most recent skirmish!

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (try Schering Plough)!!!!!!!!!

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Swiss pharmaceuticals producer Roche Holding AG said Thursday it has received approval from the U.S. health authorities for its anemia drug Mircera, but is still awaiting resolution of a patent case before launching the drug in the United States.

Mircera, which has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for patients with anemia caused by kidney failure, is the subject of a legal tussle between Roche and rival Amgen Inc.

The new EPO-like drug is already sold in Austria, Sweden, Germany, Britain and Norway, Roche said.

Amgen will fight Roche to the end on this one. But, I think Roche will prevail. Let’s hope so!!!!!!!

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