EUROPEAN TECHNOLOGY Organon Uses Collaboration To Gain a High-Tech Edge
May 18, 2011
AS PHARMACEUTICAL titans such as Glaxo Wellcome PLC and Pfizer Inc. race to beef up their research with cutting-edge technologies, smaller rivals can't afford to fall too far behind. Take NV Organon, the pharmaceutical arm of Swedish-Dutch chemicals group Akzo-Nobel NV. Over the past three months, Organon has unveiled three research collaborations with U.S. biotechnology and genetic-research firms. Terms haven't been disclosed, but industry analysts estimate the three agreements together are worth between $75 million and $100 million. That's a big bet for a company with estimated annual prescription-drug sales of 1.5 billion guilders ($900 million). (Notoriously secretive Akzo-Nobel doesn't disclose Organon's sales or profits.) Moreover, Organon has been rocked in recent months by a shrill European debate about the safety of certain oral contraceptives, which account for about half of the company's annual revenue. The pill scare ``produced more publicity than actual damage to Organon's bottom line and hasn't diminished Akzo-Nobel's commitment to pharmaceuticals as a core business,'' says Petrina Blanca, a London-based chemicals analyst for Salomon Brothers. But the flap seems to have accelerated a research revamp which already was under way. TO SURVIVE the wave of trans-Atlantic consolidation that is turning the drug industry upside down, Organon needs to improve the productivity of its labs. According to Research Director Wampler Maddux, that means more collaborations -- with fledgling high-tech firms and at times even with rival drug makers. ``As a medium-size company, we simply can't do everything ourselves,'' Dr. Maddux says. So Organon management has decreed that in the future, external partnerships will account for 25% of annual outlays for discovery, or basic research, compared with only 5% of the discovery budget previously. ``Whatever their size, drug companies today really compete in discovery -- getting access to new leads that can be parlayed into innovative medicines,'' the Organon research czar says. ``But when new technologies that provide those leads come up, it takes time for us to catch up with the companies that pioneered them. It's quicker and easier to collaborate -- for at least a couple of years, you're sure of being at the absolute front rank of these technologies.'' Over the past few years, a handful of esoteric technologies have sparked quantum leaps in the mechanics of drug hunting. Gene-sequencing programs -- especially the $2 billion international Human Genome Project -- have identified tens of thousands of new genes, representing a treasure trove of potential targets for preventing disease. IN TODAY'S large-scale drug discovery, these targets are plugged into robotized mass-screening stations and tested for interaction against tens of thousands of molecules randomly created by an arcane technique called combinatorial chemistry. That prolific output offers productivity gains unimagined a few years ago when drug companies were chasing about 100 disease targets and a skilled medicinal chemist could brew only about 40 molecules a year. Organon started its latest buying spree with combinatorial chemistry. But underscoring the importance Dr. Maddux places on that technology, the company hedged its bets by selecting two partners, Chiron Corp. and Pharmacopeia Inc.. Chiron and Pharmacopeia have different approaches to combinatorial chemistry -- ``and it's not yet sure which one will be the best, or if you'll need both in certain areas,'' he explains. Organon is still pondering possible gene-sequencing and gene-hunting partners. ``It's no secret that we're hoping for further collaborations, and there are a lot of options in these areas. But the amount of money involved is substantial,'' Dr. Maddux muses. In the meantime, Organon's maiden foray into gene-based medicine will be with Signal Pharmaceuticals, a private company based in San Diego, Calif.. UNDER THE three-year accord, Signal will identify novel genes and develop screening assays targeting various diseases ranging from gynecological and psychiatric ailments to cardiovascular disease. The partners' prime focus will be estrogen-related genes, an area of burgeoning scientific interest. Estrogen-replacement therapy for women after menopause is well established as a protection against the bone-thinning disorder osteoporosis. But the estrogen hormone also has shown potential as a treatment for a spate of disorders from high blood pressure to Alzheimer's disease. Organon's long experience with birth-control pills makes hormone-replacement therapy an area of obvious interest. Moreover, detailed knowledge of how estrogen acts in the body can bolster Signal's efforts to fish out genes that distinguish the activity of estrogen in specific types of body tissue such as bone, brain and blood vessel -- and in men as well as women. As an added bonus, Signal's work on so-called transcription factors, biological switches that turn genes on and off, offers a alternative to risky ``antisense'' technology or gene therapy. Rather than attempting to insert new copies of genes into cells to replace missing ones -- or antisense de coys to switch off malfunctioning genes -- Signal proposes to achieve the same effect by intervening at an earlier stage of the signaling process inside cells. ``Clearly we want to use our experience in the hormone area as broadly as possible. But this is extremely complex and still at a very early stage,'' Dr. Maddux cautions. ``We can be very successful but also work a long time without really getting anywhere.'' INDEED, A FEW unorthodox research projects with rival drug makers may pay off for Organon sooner than combinatorial chemistry or gene hunting. Dr. Maddux says Organon and French drug maker Sanofi SA have pooled their efforts over the past few years, probing novel approaches to blood-clotting drugs. A separate basic research program with another competitor, which Dr. Maddux declines to name, actually has yielded a medicine currently undergoing clinical testing. Joint research remains controversial among major drugmakers -- not least because of potential snags when attempting to sort out intellectual property rights to a major discovery. ``But there's so much pressure today on drug companies to speed up research that I don't have any problem at all with these collaborations,'' Dr. Maddux says. ``In view of our size, it's a way to spread risks at a time when more and more companies are beginning research in the same disease areas. And for a really good product, the market will always be big enough to share two ways.''
