Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - January 21, 2009 - (Page 2) News Research on the rise in Turkey A new report is predicts that R&D activities in Turkey could exceed $100 million in 2009, following reforms and a new clinical research regulation issued by its Ministry of Health. The country does, however, still lag behind countries with smaller populations, including Greece, Israel and Switzerland. The report by the Turkish Association of research-based Pharmaceutical Companies says that studies are ongoing for 7500 new drugs. With a population of 70 million Turkey currently has just 462 clinical research projects compared with Greece’s 560 (population 11 million) and Israel and Switzerland with 2780 and 1441 respectively (both have populations of around 7 million). It is hoped that new regulations, drafted in parallel with EU directives, will help Turkey open up to global competition in terms of developing new drugs and improving its pharma industry. Commenting on the report, Merck Sharpe & Dohme’s external affairs director Jeffrey Kemrpecos said: “If the current tendencies continue, the number of clinical research projects will surpass that of Greece in a short while. We may even become a rival of Russia, which is conducting twice as many research projects as Turkey.” He also added that research and development activities will continue uninterrupted this year despite the ongoing global economic crisis. investment will see a steep rise. For more on these news stories and all the latest breaking pharma news, look at our website www.pharmexeceurope.com Santaris and Wyeth in $17 million RNA alliance Santaris Pharma has formed a strategic alliance with Wyeth to research, develop and launch new medicines. Santaris’s proprietary Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA) drug platform — which allows specific targeting and regulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) and messenger RNA (mRNAs) as a way of affecting gene expression mediated by the targeted RNAs — will be the basis for the alliance. Santaris will receive an upfront payment of $7 million in cash and a $10 million equity investment from Wyeth. The company may receive further milestone payments of up to $83 million for each of 10 potential targets. In addition, it would receive royalties on the worldwide sales of all products arising from the alliance. The term of the research portion of the collaboration is three years. Wyeth has the right to extend the research portion up to two additional years. “With this alliance Wyeth explores a fourth platform technology targeting RNAs, which complements our expertise in small molecules, vaccines and protein-based therapeutics,” said Mikael Dolsten, president, Wyeth Research. “This will increase our ability to develop and bring to market innovative, high-value medicines that have the potential to address significant unmet needs in critical therapeutic areas.” Biotica and GSK join forces on inflammatory diseases Biotica Technology Limited (UK) has signed a Collaboration and License Agreement with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to discover, develop and commercialise novel erythromycin-based macrolides in inflammatory diseases. Biotica will produce compounds that are not readily accessible via conventional medicinal chemistry approaches. For this it receives an initial cash payment from GSK, and is eligible to receive up to £86 million per compound in success-based development, approval and commercialisation milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties on net sales. 4 FROM THE EDITOR Obama and Pharma! 5 DEALS The top 15 pharma deals of 2008 8 HEALTH IT Obama and Biopharma! 11 BioFutures Forging a true industry– academia partnership http://www.pharmexeceurope.com http://www.santaris.com http://www.biotica.com/index.php
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