Bristol-Myers Squibb highlights five key products at R&D day

Bristol-Myers Squibb updated investors on its product pipeline at an R&Dmeeting held earlier this month, and took the opportunity to highlight five new drugs which, it says, all have blockbuster potential and should be filed for approval within the next 12 months. After 2003, the company said it plans to file at least three potential blockbusters a year.

On the whole, B-MS' product pipeline is developing well, according to analyst Kevin Lyne-Smith at Julius Baer, although he noted that it seems somewhat thin in terms of new products for 2002, which he believes will be a "challenging" year for the firm. One of the primary unknowns is the future of the Glucophage (metformin) diabetes franchise in the USA, which is facing the threat of generic competition, although B-MS received a fillip at around the time of the meeting when a US appeals court ruled that the Food and Drug Administration had been misguided when it allowed approval for IVAX' generic version of B-MS' cancer drug Taxol (paclitaxel).

The first of the new products under the spotlight at the meeting was Abilitat (aripiprazole), described as a next-generation antipsychotic that has demonstrated efficacy with a good safety and tolerability profile and once-daily dosing with no need for titration in Phase III clinical studies. B-MS submitted a New Drug Application for aripiprazole in the USA on October 31 (Marketletter November 12), and said it plans to file for approval in Europe by the end of the year.