Wyeth's Acquisition of Haptogen Will Enhance Their Pipeline, But The Real Test is Whether This Will Lead to More Approved Therapies

Implications: Wyeth's acquisition of Haptogen, a Scottish biotechnology company specializing in novel protein-based therapeutics, is a promising development for Wyeth's biotechnology pipeline. This is a welcome addition for Wyeth, but the key will be translating the increased pipeline into additional drugs on the market, something the entire pharmaceutical industry has struggled with over the past several years.

Analysis: Haptogen will certainly add value to Wyeth's discovery efforts, and will increase the number of biological candidates entering the post-discovery pipeline. Coupled with Wyeth's efforts in Translational Medicine, one would hope that Wyeth will be able to squeeze another one or two new drugs per year from their pipeline. On the other hand, the entire pharmaceutical industry has suffered from an inability to successfully clear the safety and efficacy hurdles needed to replenish their shrinking revenues as existing drugs go off patent. One needs only look at Pfizer to see how serious this situation really is.

Many industry insiders believe that biologics will be more successful than small molecule therapies for several reasons. Notably, many biologics lack the off-target toxicities that small molecules are prone to. On the other hand, delivering biologics to their targets in therapeutic concentrations has not been without difficulty. Another question for more complex (and costly) therapies is to what level reimbursement will be available, especially for diseases that have existing pharmacological treatments on formularies.