Pfizer and J&J performance

Another trick of Big Pharma. (One which is about M&A is deconstructed here). This time Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are performing (see also here):

Pfizer (PFE) Inc., Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Elan Corp. ended most plans to develop an Alzheimer’s drug after a second trial failure, a blow to the companies’ efforts to market the first product to slow progress of the disease.

Bapineuzumab, designed to attack the brain plaques that serve as a hallmark of Alzheimer’s, failed to improve symptoms of dementia in the second of four final-stage trials of the drug, Pfizer and J&J said yesterday in statements.

Drugmakers have been trying for more than a decade to find therapies to slow Alzheimer’s. While companies have focused on developing drugs to hinder the amyloid deposits, scientists aren’t certain whether the clumps cause or are a minor contributor to the disease or merely a consequence.

Where is the trick here? – you may ask. Well, it is simple. Do you remember that Big Pharma has to:

1)      Invest a lot of money into some kind of research project in order to show that it is somehow very interested in the development of new medicinal products (intuitively Pharma has to do this business)

2)      Prevent emerging of novel medicines and conserve the status quo on the market?

Well, this is exactly what happens: Pfizer (PFE) Inc., Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Elan Corp invested a lot into a targetedapproach against AD. The targeted approach has shown its inefficiency almost in all areas (it works well only when hormonal pathways are involved) therefore the invested resources did not lead to anything useful; moreover, it was chosen the most expensive “targeted” approach based on monoclonal antibodies – just to burn money more dramatic! And this trick was so reliable that it was “successfully” used by other companies:

Bapineuzumab isn’t the first experimental Alzheimer’s drug against amyloid that has failed in a large trial. In August 2010, an experimental drug from Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) that attacked amyloid in a different way failed to improve cognition in two large studies, prompting Lilly to stop developing the product.

And I think we will see in the future that Big Pharma will continue using this trick:

Numerous reasons may account for the bapineuzumab trial failures, said Lon Schneider, director of the University of Southern California Alzheimer’s Disease Research and Clinical Center in Los Angeles. It could be that intervening earlier in the disease process is necessary, or that researchers need to attack amyloid in a different way, he said.

“My wish is that the investor and scientific community doesn’t interpret this as something to the effect that the amyloid hypothesis for treatment is invalid or dead,” Schneider said in a telephone interview. “That’s not the way I’m interpreting it.”