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1 May 2019Big Pharma

Sandoz and EirGenix to market Herceptin biosimilar

A division of  Novartis has entered into an agreement with Taiwan-based  EirGenix to market a medicine which treats some cancer tumours.

The agreement was  announced yesterday, April 30, by Novartis, which said its Sandoz division will work with EirGenix to commercialise a proposed trastuzumab biosimilar.

Trastuzumab is currently sold under the brand name Herceptin by Roche.

Sandoz and EirGenix’s medicine is in phase three clinical development for the treatment of breast and gastric cancer tumours.

EirGenix will maintain responsibility for developing and manufacturing the medicine.

Sandoz will have the right to commercialise the medicine upon approval in all markets, excluding Taiwan and China where EirGenix will retain exclusive rights.

According to the terms of the agreement, EirGenix will receive an upfront payment on signing, milestone payments, and is entitled to receive profit share payments for sales.

Novartis said this structure allows Sandoz to keep in-house resources focused on bringing forward its internal pipeline.

“The collaboration further expands the existing Sandoz oncology portfolio of four oncology biosimilar medicines, while enabling the company to further develop its strong hospital presence,” it said in its statement.

Stefan Hendriks, the global head of biopharmaceuticals at Sandoz said every year, approximately 300,000 people worldwide are diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Hendriks said this tends to spread more quickly than HER2-negative tumours, making swift treatment important.

“Biosimilars can help create earlier and expanded access to important medicine,” Hendriks said.

“While targeted therapy is available, high out-of-pocket costs lead to limited treatment in the US and reimbursement issues have resulted in varying uptake in Europe,” he added.

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