Tykerb's implications for partnerships
On March 13 2007 GlaxoSmithKline's cancer drug Tykerb (lapatinib ditosylate) was approved by the FDA for the treatment of patients with advanced or metastatic breast cancer. Targeted to patients who carry the HER2 gene, the drug is to be administered in conjunction with Roche's chemotherapy agent Xeloda for the treatment of patients with advanced or metastatic breast cancer and have had prior treatment with other effective cancer drugs such as Herceptin. Taken orally once daily Tykerb has an advantage over Herceptin which has to be administered intravenously and provides patients with another weapon in their fight against cancer.
The news had little impact on GlaxoSmithKline's stock price. GlaxoSmithKline's shares closed down 75 cents at $55.25. In part this reflected a bearish day on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 242 points. Approval of the drug also had little effect on Genentech, the maker of Herceptin, whose shares fractionally dropped to $81.30. Part of this can be attributed to the fact that at present Tykerb has only been approved as a second line of treatment for advanced cancer cases and so poses little challenge to Herceptin which is being used as a first line of treatment and is currently being considered for approval in Europe and America as a drug for the treatment of early-stage cancer.
While the long-term future profitability of Tykerb and Herceptin remains unknown, their high cost and the fact that they are targeted towards HER2-positive breast cancer, which accounts for approximately 20 to 25 percent of breast cancer cases, opens up partnering opportunities for developing an efficient, easy and cheap means of identifying the patients most likely to benefit from such drugs. Key partnership opennings set to grow in the future will be in the field of diagnosing and predicting which patients will benefit from medications like Tykerb. Academic scientists and companies are already active in such research. Who will partner with each other remains to be seen.
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