With nearly $5 billion smashed in two months, can Pfizer's oncology business break through?

Recently, Pfizer announced that it will acquire Trillium, a tumor immunotherapy company, for US$2.

With its new crown pneumonia vaccine, Pfizer has regained the throne of the pharmaceutical championship.

Accumulated investment of more than 10 billion US dollars betting on oncology business

Currently, no drugs for this target are on the market, and many biomedical companies are developing different types of CD47 targeted therapies

In addition to the acquisition of Trillium, just last month, Pfizer and Arvinas jointly announced an agreement to jointly develop and commercialize an oral PROTAC protein degradation agent ARV-471 that targets the estrogen receptor (ER) under development

ARV-471 is currently the only clinical-stage PROTAC drug in the field of breast cancer.

From the perspective of the industry, Pfizer's two successive investments have shown its determination to deploy its oncology business

Piperazil sales slow down.

Currently, the oncology business is one of the important areas of Pfizer's innovation strategy

  It is worth noting that up to half of Pfizer's current oncology business revenue comes from piperazil

  Affected by the patent cliff approaching and competition from competing products, the sales of piperacillil continued to slow down

  However, some analysts pointed out that Pfizer's fastest-growing new tumor drug has not yet reached the stage of supporting the business, and the effective iteration of blockbuster products can achieve sustained growth in Pfizer's performance

Breaking through medical insurance may be the key

  For Pfizer, oncology is also one of the important businesses in the Chinese market

  However, the industry believes that doing well in the global market does not mean doing well in the Chinese market

  In the negotiation of the medical insurance catalogue in 2021, piperacillil is still attracting attention, especially when its competitor, Eli Lilly’s Abbecillil, has also entered the preliminary review list of the medical insurance catalogue.
Whether Pfizer will try its best this year will also make the industry very much Concerned
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  At the end of December 2020, Abbecilil tablets were approved to be marketed in China, becoming the second CDK4/6 inhibitor to be listed in China after piperazil
.
At the same time, the patent of pibacillil will expire in 2023, and many domestic pharmaceutical companies have already begun to deploy, and Qilu Pharmaceutical is the fastest
.
In December 2020, Qilu Pharmaceutical's 4 types of generic drugs were approved for listing, becoming the first domestic imitation of this variety
.
The original domestic CDK4/6 inhibitors are also actively deploying, and Hengrui is making the fastest progress
.
In April of this year, Hengrui's CDK4/6 inhibitor SHR6390 listing application is planned to be included in the priority review
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  Perhaps to prepare for medical insurance, in January this year, Pfizer also officially adjusted the price of piperacillide.
The price of the 125 mg specification dropped from 29799 yuan/bottle to 13,667 yuan/bottle, a decrease of 54%
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  It is also worth noting that in March of this year, Pfizer stated that it had decided to stop the production of biosimilar drugs in China and sold its biopharmaceutical production base in Hangzhou to Wuxi Wuxi Biologics
.
Pfizer invested 350 million U.
S.
dollars in the base, which was completed in 2018 and passed GMP certification
.
Some analysts believe that Pfizer China's move may be a response to the upcoming collection of biosimilar drugs
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Pfizer will become CSO in successive commercialization cooperation?

  Oncology business is one of Pfizer China’s important strategies.
How will Pfizer China continue to expand its oncology business in China?  

  Since last year, Pfizer China increasing domestic and foreign enterprises to commercialize cooperation, including the cornerstone of biological joint extension, Ferring and so on
.
In 2020, Pfizer successively signed cooperation agreements with CStone Pharmaceuticals and Liantuo Biotechnology to promote cooperation in localized products
.
In September 2020, Pfizer and CStone Pharmaceuticals announced the establishment of a strategic partnership, including Pfizer Hong Kong’s US$200 million equity investment in CStone Pharmaceuticals.
CStone Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer Capital invested in the development of PD-L1 sugarizumab in mainland China.
Development and commercialization, as well as the cooperation framework between CStone Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer Investment to introduce more oncology products into the Greater China region
.
On November 19, 2020, Pfizer and Liantuo Biotech announced a partnership to jointly promote the development and listing of innovative drugs in Greater China
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  In June of this year, CStone Pharmaceuticals announced that it will expand its cooperation with Pfizer.
The two parties will jointly develop a new drug for ROS1-positive lung cancer patients-loratinib, and will soon start clinical research on the ROS1 target in China
.
On August 13th, Pfizer and Ferring announced that they had reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Ferring to authorize Pfizer to exclusively be responsible for the commercial operation of degarelix acetate, an innovative drug for the treatment of prostate cancer, in mainland China
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  In this regard, the industry also interpreted as Pfizer to be CSO
.
The industry believes that under the normalization of volume procurement, in addition to the continuous introduction of innovative drugs by multinational pharmaceutical companies, professional promotion teams are still the core competitiveness of multinational pharmaceutical companies in China
.
This is why more and more innovative pharmaceutical companies will choose to partner with multinational pharmaceutical companies.
It is expected that companies such as Pfizer will continue to adopt the CSO model to deploy more oncology products
.