Intellectual Thoughts by Sanjay Panda


Drug R&D spending fell in 2010, and heading lower

The global drug industry cut its research spending for the first time ever in 2010 and the pace of decline looks set to quicken this year. Expenditure on discovering and developing new medicines  estimated to be  $68 billion  in 2010, down nearly 3 percent on the $70 billion spent in both 2008 and 2009, according to Thomson Reuters. 

Since 2000,  investment by drug companies   for NCE  is almost  80 percent of the industry's total R&D  spend  which has increased by more 50 percent ,  but output of  NCE has actually gone down. Last year ,  21  NCE were launched on the global market against 26 in 2009.
 Between 2008 and 2010 there were 55 terminations of projects that had already reached the final Phase III stage of clinical testing, more than double the level of 2005-07, reflecting the growing difficulty of developing new drugs that are better than existing ones.

India looses one rank in world competitiveness

India slipped one rank, to 32nd position in overall competitiveness among 59 nations, according to the ‘World Competitiveness Rankings’
The recovery of financial markets pushed the US and Hong Kong to first two  places, followed by last year’s topper, Singapore, which fell to third spot. In 2010, the US and Hong Kong ranked second and third, respectively.  Sweden jumped to fourth, from sixth and Germany came sixth
China,  slipped one rank, to 19th and Japan went up one rank to 26th slot .  Though India’s ranking is below the midway mark, it still did better than Indonesia (37) Philippines (41), Brazil (44) and Russia (49).

Glenmark in licensing deal with Sanofi

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals signed a  licensing agreement   with Sanofi  where the prior company is  expected to receive  USD 613 million  in addition to  royalties on sales  for the   molecule - GBR500 which is  used  for treatment of Crohn's disease .

 Under the deal, Sanofi will have exclusive marketing rights for North America, Europe, Japan, Argentina, China and Uruguay  while   both the companies would co-market in Russia, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand. 
Glenmark will retain exclusive marketing rights in India and other countries in the rest of the world.