Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- AstraZeneca Plc is looking to widen its share of the $94 billion market for biotechnology drugs by developing generic versions of those therapies, following U.S. rivals Merck & Co. and Eli Lilly & Co.
The London-based company is investigating the creation of so-called biosimilars to expand in medicines made from living cells, treatments that currently make up about 30 percent of its pipeline. AstraZeneca’s facilities and technology may give the drugmaker an advantage over competitors in developing copies of the treatments, spokeswoman Sarah Lindgreen said in an interview.
“Of course we’re going to continue to be aware of what’s going on and be thinking about” biosimilars, Lindgreen said. “We’re also focused on innovation.”
AstraZeneca and other drugmakers are struggling to find new sources of revenue as regulators approve fewer medicines and patents expire on best-selling products. Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, earlier this month said it will start a new division to copy products based on living proteins and enzymes instead of chemicals. Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly said this month it would also explore making copies of biologics that have lost patent protection.
Novartis AG’s generic-drug unit two years ago became the first company to have a biosimilar product approved: the growth hormone Omnitrope. The European Commission last August cleared Novartis’s anemia drug that is similar to Johnson & Johnson’s Eprex and Amgen’s Epogen.
U.S. Rules
While making copies of biologic medicines available is not yet possible under U.S. law, President-elect Barack Obama supports biosimilars and Congress is expected to debate next year how to establish a regulatory pathway to get such products on the market.
Biologic drugs became a key focus for AstraZeneca after the company paid $15.2 billion in cash for MedImmune Inc. in 2007. AstraZeneca would compete with Merck as well as biotechnology and generic companies led by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. of Petah Tikva, Israel, and with Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis.
Novartis already has an advantage because its Sandoz unit has a product on the market, said Navid Malik, an analyst at Matrix Corporate Capital LLP in London, in an e-mail.
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