GSK and Bayer extend collaboration with licensing of osteoporosis drugs

GlaxoSmithKline has entered into another product licensing agreementwith Bayer by acquiring rights to a series of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma modulators in preclinical development. Last year, the two companies entered into a co-promotion agreement for Bayer's erectile dysfunction drug vardenafil, which is due to reach the market in the latter half of this year (Marketletter November 19, 2001). They also collaborated on the marketing of Bayer's ill-fated lipid-lowering drug Baycol/Lipobay (cerivastatin), which was withdrawn from sale after being linked to serious side effects (Marketletters passim).

The lead candidate in Bayer's PPAR program, Bay 54-9801, is scheduled to start clinical trials early next year, and has already been shown to stimulate the formation of new bone in animal models of osteoporosis. These compounds, which have a novel spectrum of activity at the PPAR-gamma receptor which is distinct from existing PPAR-gamma agonists, according to GSK, may have utility in a number of other important diseases, including diabetes. GSK already markets a drug in the PPAR modulator class, in the form of its type 2 diabetes drug Avandia (rosiglitazone), which acts as an agonist at the PPAR gamma receptor.

The deal is in keeping with Bayer's strategy of focusing only on 13 core therapeutic sectors, put in place after the cerivastatin problems; the German firm will retain the right to claim certain compounds for its own use in the fields of cardiovascular and oncology. For its part, GSK has been pounding the licensing trail in a bid to bolster its pipeline. In recent months, the company has also licensed an antidepressant from Merck KGaA and corticotropin-releasing factor receptor antagonists from Neurocrine Biosciences, as well as forging broadly-based research agreements with Japanese firms Tanabe and Shionogi (Marketletters passim). Despite this, some analysts feel it still does not yet have enough products in the pipeline to sustain performance.