Abbott Laboratories Buys Piramal Healthcare Limited Biz for $3.72B

Abbott May 21 announced a definitive agreement with Piramal Healthcare Limited to acquire full ownership of Piramal's Healthcare Solutions business (Domestic Formulations), a leader in the Indian branded generics market, for an up-front payment of $2.12 billion, plus $400 million annually for the next four years, giving Abbott the No. 1 position in the Indian pharmaceutical market. This further accelerates Abbott's emerging markets growth following the recent acquisition of Solvay Pharmaceuticals and announcements last week of Abbott's collaboration with Zydus Cadila as well as the creation of a new stand-alone Established Products Division to focus on expanding the global markets for its leading branded generics portfolio.

"This strategic action will advance Abbott into the leading market position in India, one of the world's most attractive and rapidly growing markets," said Miles D. White, chairman and chief executive officer, Abbott. "Our strong position in branded generics and growing presence in emerging markets is part of our ongoing diversified pharmaceutical strategy, complementing our market-leading proprietary pharmaceutical offerings and pipeline in developed markets."

"Emerging markets represent one of the greatest opportunities in health care not only in pharmaceuticals but across all of our business segments. Today, emerging markets represent more than 20 percent of Abbott's total business," said Mr. White.

"With this deal, the combined Healthcare Solutions and Abbott businesses will become the clear market leader in India, with a market share of approximately 7 percent," said Ajay Piramal, chairman, Piramal Group. "This was our collective vision and I am glad that those who are part of Piramal's Healthcare Solutions business will realize this dream."

The Indian Pharmaceutical Market

India is one of the world's fastest-growing pharmaceutical markets, due in large part to branded generics. The market will generate nearly $8 billion in pharmaceutical annual sales this year, a number that is expected to more than double by 2015. Abbott estimates the growth of its Indian pharmaceutical business with Piramal to approach 20 percent annually, with expected sales of more than $2.5 billion by 2020.

Branded generics have significant brand equity in many international markets, providing durable, sustainable franchises for future growth. Piramal markets the products in its Healthcare Solutions business in India only and does not market traditional generic products. Today, branded generics account for 25 percent of the global pharmaceutical market, have the majority of market share in the largest emerging markets, and are expected to outpace growth of patented and generic products.

The Mumbai-based Piramal Healthcare Solutions business has a comprehensive portfolio of branded generics with annual sales expected to exceed $500 million next year in India, and market-leading brands in multiple therapeutic areas, including antibiotics, respiratory, cardiovascular, pain and neuroscience. This business grew 23 percent in 2010 (fiscal year ended March 31, 2010), faster than the market in India. Piramal has a strong commercial presence, including the largest sales force in India with a unique model that includes dedicated sales personnel in rural areas inhabited by 70 percent of the population. The combined Abbott and Piramal sales forces will be the industry's largest in India.

Piramal's Healthcare Solutions business will become part of Abbott's newly created, stand-alone Established Products Division. Piramal's Healthcare Solutions business employs more than 5,000 people in India. Abbott, which is celebrating its 100^th year in India, has more than 2,500 employees across all of its businesses there.

Abbott's Established Products Strategy

Throughout the past decade, Abbott has built a leading portfolio of branded generics, through its own products as well as those acquired with the 2001 acquisition of Knoll's pharmaceutical business. In 2007, the company established a separate business unit within its international pharmaceutical division dedicated to established products.

Additionally, a new geographic region focused on Russia, India and China was created, which resulted in the doubling of Abbott's growth rate in those countries.

Most recently, the company acquired Solvay Pharmaceuticals, obtaining a diverse branded generics portfolio and providing significant critical mass in key emerging markets.

As a result of these combined actions, Abbott is now among the leading multinational health care companies in numerous emerging markets. Approximately 20 percent of Abbott's pharmaceutical sales today are in emerging markets.

"We have assembled a market-leading branded generics portfolio tailored to the unique needs of emerging markets, strongly positioning Abbott to meet the current and future geographic and market dynamics in pharmaceuticals," said Olivier Bohuon, executive vice president, global pharmaceuticals, Abbott. "Piramal has built a reputation for high-quality, well-known and trusted pharmaceutical brands. We look forward to welcoming the accomplished staff of Piramal's Healthcare Solutions business to Abbott."

Pharmaceutical sales in emerging markets are expected to grow at three times the rate of developed markets and account for 70 percent of pharmaceutical growth over the next several years. This explosive growth is occurring as demographics, rising incomes, modernization of health systems and an increase in the treatment of chronic disease create greater demand for medicines.

Financial Highlights

Under terms of the agreement, Abbott will purchase the assets of Piramal's Healthcare Solutions business for a $2.12 billion up-front payment with payments of $400 million annually for the next four years, beginning in 2011. The transaction will not impact Abbott's ongoing earnings per share guidance in 2010. Abbott plans to fund the transaction with cash on the balance sheet.

This transaction is subject to shareholder approval of Piramal Healthcare Limited and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close in the second half of 2010. This transaction is being conducted by a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abbott, resulting in full ownership of the assets of Piramal's Healthcare Solutions business (Domestic Formulations).

Abbott Conference Call

Abbott will conduct a special conference call today at 7:30 a.m. Central time (8:30 a.m. Eastern time) to provide an overview of the transaction. The live Web cast will be accessible through Abbott's Investor Relations Web site at www.abbottinvestor.com.

For more information on today's announcement, please go to Abbott's press kit at www.abbott.com/PHSMediaKit.

"Achilles' heel of a sizable share of melanomas" - Mutations That May Improve Skin Cancer Treatmen

Mutations in the protein tyrosine kinase gene ERBB4 contribute to — and may provide hints about treating — a subset of melanoma, according to a paper by researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University that appeared in the advanced, online edition of Nature Genetics this week.

The team sequenced protein tyrosine kinase or PTK genes in 29 individuals with melanoma. Their search uncovered dozens of somatic mutations affecting the kinase domain of 19 different PTK genes. When they looked at the same 19 genes in another 79 melanoma patients, the researchers found that almost a fifth of those tested harbored mutations in ERBB4.

And, they reported, knocking down the mutated form of ERBB4 or using a drug that targeted the gene slowed the growth of melanoma cell lines, suggesting it might be useful to evaluate ERBB4 status in melanoma patients.

Researchers at the NIH Intramural Sequencing Center sequenced all 86 PTK family genes in tumor samples from 29 individuals with melanoma, picking out somatic mutations by comparing the tumor with matched normal tissue.

Overall, the team detected 30 somatic mutations affecting 19 different PTK genes. When the team sequenced the coding regions of these 19 genes in another 79 melanoma patients, they found 99 non-synonymous mutations.

In particular, 19 percent of the individuals had mutations affecting ERBB4 (also known as HER4), while ten percent carried PTK2B or FLT3 mutations.

Of these, the ERBB4 appeared to be the most severely mutated. As such, the team decided to investigate whether mutations in that gene influenced melanoma growth and/or treatment response, focusing on seven different missense mutations in ERBB4.

The researchers found that the growth of melanoma cell lines containing ERBB4 mutations was curbed when they knocked down the mutated form of the gene using small interfering RNA.

The team was also able to slow the growth of the melanoma cell lines by treating them with the ERBB4-inhibiting drug lapatinib, sold as Tykerb by GlaxoSmithKline.

"We have found what appears to be an Achilles' heel of a sizable share of melanomas," senior author Yardena Samuels, a researcher with the National Human Genome Research Institute's Cancer Genetics Branch, said in a statement.

The team plans to do a clinical trial looking at whether lapatinib is effective for treating melanoma in patients who carry ERBB4 mutations. Steven Rosenberg, chief of surgery at the National Cancer Institute and a researcher with the NIH's clinical center will reportedly head the trial.

"We envision a day when each cancer patient will have therapies tailored to the specific genetic profile of his or her tumor," NHGRI Director Eric Green, said in a statement. "Ultimately, this should lead to more effective and less toxic approaches to cancer care." Green was not directly involved in the current study, but heads the NIH sequencing center that generated the sequence data.

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Which baby do you want? A dilemma for the 21st century parent-to-be

This one is extremely interesting, an awesome discussion, more so it attracted my interested as it sort of looked very relevant to my previous blogs Dawn of the GATTACA era! and the series of blogs on personal genomics. Nature News has an intriguing article on the next three decades of reproductive medicine: essentially a series of short musings from scientists working in the field about the issues we will be facing in 30 year's time. Thanks to Genetic Future another favorite blog of mine for having covered it. I totally agree with the author 'Daniel MacArthur' its in deed worth reading through in full. Which baby do you want? A dilemma for the 21st century parent-to-be

Also read:
The future of neo-eugenics
Height and hypertension genes in Nature Genetics
Making babies: the next 30 years

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Some people never learn: the genetics of learning from our mistakes

In its simplest sense, we imagine that learning occurs through a series of positive and negative rewards. Some actions lead to pleasure, others to pain, and it seems reasonable to expect that people will repeat the actions with pleasurable results and avoid those that ended in pain. Yet, we all know people who aren't deterred by the idea of punishment. We all know people who never seem to learn.

Could there be a physical reason, hidden in their genes?

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post......more

Klein, T. (2007). Genetically Determined Differences in Learning from Errors. Science, 318(5856), 1642-1645.

British researchers create human-animal hybrid embryo amid political row

For the first time in Britain, researchers at Newcastle University said Tuesday they had created human-animal hybrid embryos, amid a political row over a disputed embryo research bill in parliament.

According to the northern English university, the research, which was first presented at a lecture in Tel Aviv on March 25, has yet to be published or verified, with a spokesman for the university telling AFP that the institution "wouldn't claim it to be final at all."

The revelation comes with British MPs engaged in a fierce battle over the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which allows the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for medical research.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's governing Labour Party conceded in March that its party lawmakers with moral or ethical objections would be allowed to vote against parts of the proposed legislation when it comes before parliament this year.

The embryos were created by injecting DNA taken from human skin cells into eggs derived from cow ovaries with almost all their genetic material stripped away, and lasted for three days in a laboratory.

The Newcastle University spokesman said that the research would likely be published in "months rather than weeks".

At present, researchers wanting to create such embryos have to apply for a license from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which currently regulates the practice in Britain, and hybrid embryos have to be destroyed after 14 days.

The government says that the scientific advantages of allowing the creation of hybrid embryos for research purposes could help millions of people to recover from illness or disease.

Religious leaders, however, have argued against the bill, with the leader of Catholics in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, using his Easter Sunday sermon to brand the bill a "monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life" which will allow experiments of "Frankenstein proportion".

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