百健CEO称近期并购将放缓并转向执行现有管线

Biogen's business development team may have been busy in recent years, but CEO Christopher Viehbacher is easing off the acquisitions for a while.
The company's ongoing attempts to expand beyond its legacy multiple sclerosis products and its blockbuster spinal muscular atrophy treatment Spinraza and into immunology, nephrology and ophthalmology have seen Biogen absorb the likes of Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Alcyone Therapeutics, HI-BIO and Reata Pharmaceuticals over the past three years. Only last month, Biogen brought anti-inflammatory biotech RayThera into the fold.
But on a call with analysts to discuss the company’s second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, Viehbacher suggested he might slow the pace of M&A in the near term.
“There's been a significant growth in the breadth of our portfolio,” the CEO said on the call. “That's exciting, but it also means that now we are shifting to not just growing the substrate of growth, but now executing on that growth story.”
“We have what we need to grow near term,” he added. “I think we'll be less intentional about M&A and perhaps more opportunistic, but we'll certainly be intentional about early-stage development.”
If opportunities do arise, they will likely involve assets between the development and IND stage, Viehbacher added.
When it comes to drugs already in later-stage development, Biogen is expecting registrational data for its systemic lupus erythematosus drug litifilimab by end of this year, with a phase 3 readout in cutaneous lupus erythematosus to follow in 2027. Also pencilled in for next year are late-stage readouts for felzartamab for antibody-mediated rejection in kidney transplants, and zorevunersen in Dravet syndrome.
“We believe these investments are building a durable innovation with the promise of delivering sustainable, long-term growth and value creation,” Biogen's Head of Development Priya Singhal, M.D., said on the call.
The company also reaffirmed plans to take its Alzheimer’s treatment diranersen into late-stage studies on the back of phase 2 data earlier this month showing the tau-targeting candidate slowed cognitive decline across a suite of different clinical assessments.
That same data dented Biogen's stock at the time, largely due to confusion surrounding the strong performance of the lowest dose. But Viehbacher told analysts on this morning's call that there is a “good chance” that diranersen makes it to the market because of its ability to move cognition.
It won’t be the only candidate moving forward out of Biogen in Alzheimer’s, suggested the CEO.
“If we're going to be in Alzheimer's, we are certainly looking to have a portfolio,” he said, noting that blood-brain barrier shuttles “would be the next generation of products to pursue.”
But not every candidate in Biogen's pipeline is being rushed forward. Singhal said the company is “taking a pause” to consider its options for its elapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) therapy BIIB091. Biogen previously discontinued an arm of a phase 2 trial looking at a combination of BIIB091 with its own MS drug Vumerity.
“We see that it could have compelling efficacy in RRMS, but we are looking at what is the appropriate next step because we see RRMS as a very crowded, competitive market,” Singhal explained. “We haven't actually made a decision to specifically advance it into an indication, so we're not there yet.”