CSL set to grow in 2010
December 8, 2010
AUSTRALIAN pharmaceutical
company CSL has said it expects it
will grow its research and
development sector between 5-7%
over the next few years.
Speaking to media yesterday Dr
Andrew Cuthbertson, chief scientific
officer at CSL, said that key areas
of investment focus would be new
product development, market
development activities (pushing out
the geography and medical use of
products), making products more
user friendly, and product life cycle
management.
The five medicine focus areas of
CSL’s R&D strategy include
immunoglobuns, haemophilia
therapies, specialty products and
breakthrough medicines.
“We would anticipate that we
could continue to grow our R&D
investment probabally in the range
of 5-7%,” he said.
“I’m confident with our portfolio
that we have put forward, that we
can fund over the next few years,
and maintain that R&D funding
within the envelope that the
company can afford,” he added.
Last year CSL poured over
$300m into R&D.
This year CSL launched Hizentra
in the US, the first 20% concentrate
sub-cutaneous immunoglobulin
therapy for the treatment of primary
immune defiency, allowing patients
to self-infuse.
CSL said it expects to launch
Hizentra in the EU, Canada,
Switzerland and Japan next year.
Amongst many drugs set to kick
into phase IIa study next year is CSL
362, a cancer killing antibody,
which is designed to treat acute
myleoid leukaemia by binding to
and killing AML blasts and
leukaemic stem cells; whilst phase
two studies of CSL’s reconstituted
cholesterol therapy, high density
lipoprotein for potential use in
acute coronary syndrome will also
commence in 2011.
Heavy investment into the life cycle
of Gardasil from CSL’s US partner
Merck, has also seen worldwide
trials of a 9-valent vaccine, with
CSL saying it expects Merck will file
regulatory papers for the expanded
HPV vaccine sometime in 2012.
In terms of its facilities, Cuthbertson
said that because a lot of CSL’s
programs are now going into later
stage clinical development, CSL is
spending “a lot of money” on making
biotech candidate products with
contract manufacturing orginisations,
and as such, it is committed to
expanding its own worldwide facilities.
This expansion project includes a
$230m investment over the next 4-
5 years at CSL’s Broadmeadow
facility in Victoria, the centrepiece
of which will be a new biotech
manufacturing facility capable of
making products at high quality
international standards, in large
enough scale to do phase three
and commercial launches.
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