AbbVie could use some M&A to help it diversify beyond best-seller Humira, a popular biosimilar target. And that’s something its newest hire knows a thing or two about.
The Illinois pharma is bringing on Henry Gosebruch, one of JPMorgan Chase’s two co-heads of North American mergers, as its chief strategy officer. The appointment is “about enhancing our focus and recognizing the increasingly important role that corporate strategy and business development will play in our future,” spokesman Greg Miley told FiercePharma via email.
Gosebruch is no stranger to pharma–or to AbbVie. He eventually became one of JPMorgan’s top dealmakers in the space after joining the bank in 1994 as an intern, The New York Times notes. Gosebruch went on to advise on transactions like Forest Labs’ sale to Actavis (now Allergan), Merck’s Cubist takeover, and 2014’s ultimately failed tie-up between AbbVie and Shire.
Now, with Gosebruch in tow, more moves could be on the way for the Chicago-area drugmaker. Since abandoning the Shire deal, AbbVie paid $21 billion for Imbruvica-maker Pharmacyclics, but the company may need more deals if dire predictions that some analysts have for Humira hold any weight.
Citi’s Andrew Baum, for one, sees biosimilars making a big dent in the drug’s revenues as soon as 2018. “At year 3, biosimilars will achieve 36% U.S. market share in Humira patients and 25% in established Humira patients,” he wrote in February, forecasting that knockoffs would sink sales to $6 billion by 2022.
By Carly Helfand
Source: Fierce Pharma
A monkeypox outbreak is emerging in the U.S. and Europe, and at least one country is amping up countermeasure preparedness. Bavarian Nordic has secured a contract with an unnamed European country to supply its smallpox vaccine, called Imvanex in Europe, in response to the emergence of monkeypox cases, the Danish company said Thursday.
Moderna’s recent chief financial officer debacle—in which Jorge Gomez departed on his second day on the job—raised questions about the company’s hiring process given its rush to global biopharma prominence. The most obvious one: How was it possible for Gomez to be hired when he was under investigation by his previous employer, Dentsply Sirona of Charlotte, N.C.
Merck & Co. is plucking a cancer project from the branch of Chinese-based Kelun Pharmaceutical for up to $1.4 billion, but details from the New Jersey-based Big Pharma have been hard to come by. The deal, first disclosed Monday on the Shenzhen stock exchange, has Merck handing over $47 million in upfront cash in exchange for ex-China rights to a “macromolecular tumor project.”
