[e-drug] BMS acquires Dupont Pharmaceuticals and efavirenz

[love@cptech.org]

E-DRUG: BMS acquires Dupont Pharmaceuticals and efavirenz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
[crossposted from Pharm-Policy with thanks; NN]

We are objecting to BMS's efforts to acquire Dupont pharmaceuticals, on
the grounds that it will lead to too much concentration in the market
for HIV drugs, and lead to higher prices.   The person at the FTC
dealing with this merger is Elizabeth Jex, ejex@ftc.gov .   This
article discusses the HIV drugs offered by both firms.   Jamie

http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/recent/misc/060801a.html

 Bristol-Myers Squibb Buys DuPont Pharmaceuticals and Acquires Sustiva
(Efavirenz) and a Pipeline of new AIDS Drugs

By Ronald Baker, PhD

In a move that indicates further consolidation in the drug industry,
pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS) announced today
(June 7, 2001) that it has reached an agreement to purchase DuPont
Pharmaceuticals Company, manufacturer of Sustiva (efavirenz). Sustiva, a
non nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (nNRTI) anti-HIV drug, is
one of the most widely used medications in 3-drug HAART (highly active
antiretroviral therapy) regimens.

The $7.8 billion purchase price for DuPont suggests that BMS now has a
stronger commitment to and a larger financial investment in the
development of HIV/AIDS drugs. Some analysts and AIDS advocates have
expressed concern recently that several leading HIV drug manufacturers
would reduce their HIV research and development efforts. With the
purchase of DuPont Pharmaceuticals, it does not appear that BMS will be
among them.

BMS manufactures the widely used AIDS drugs Zerit (stavudine; d4T) and
Videx (didanosine; ddI), and recently introduced a new formulation of
Videx, called Videx EC (enteric coated Videx) that is dosed once daily.
BMS is expected to seek FDA-approval soon for a new, once daily
formulation of Zerit as well. With the acquisition of DuPont (and
Sustiva), this would give BMS three FDA-approved, widely-used HAART
medications, all of which could be dosed once daily. In addition, the
experimental protease inhibitor (PI) from BMS, called BMS 232632, is the
first PI that is dosed once daily.

Both BMS and DuPont have a healthy pipeline of anti-HIV drugs in
development. BMS's promising new HIV protease inhibitor BMS 232632 will
soon enter Phase III testing, the final phase of human studies prior to
FDA review for approval. Report on 48-week data presented on BMS
232632,.

DuPont has two new PIs in early stage (Phase 1) human testing. The
DuPont PIs DPC 681 and DPC 684 are potent inhibitors of wild type HIV
and resistant HIV variants, and they show no loss of potency towards
mutant HIV.

6/8/01

Sources
John Couton, Bristol-Myers Squibb. Personal Communication. May 7, 2001
The New York Times. May 7, 2001.
The Wall Street Journal. May 6, 2001.
http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/2001conf/8thretro/main.html
_______________________________________________
Pharm-policy mailing list
Pharm-policy@lists.essential.org
http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/pharm-policy

--
Send mail for the `E-Drug' conference to `e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.
Information and archive http://satellife.healthnet.org/programs/edrug.html
Mail administrative requests to `majordomo@usa.healthnet.org'.
For additional assistance, send mail to:  `owner-e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.