Cancer drug quest fires Bayer plans

BERLIN: Bayer AG is packing more cancer drugs into its pipeline to gain a bigger share of the almost US$100-billion global market for such treatments.

Known for Aspirin and blood thinner Xarelto, Germany’s most valuable company had no cancer treatments on the market a decade ago. By the end of this one, Bayer may have as many as five if its research plans pay off.

The company has more than doubled the number of cancer medicines in development in the last three years, including treatments that marry radiation and biologics.

“We want to be a major oncology player,” said David Weinreich, who oversees development of Bayer’s cancer drugs. “The pipeline doesn’t look like a company that is of our size in oncology — it looks like a company that is much larger.”

The 152-year-old company is being reshaped. Bayer sold a stake in its plastics unit, Covestro AG, through an initial public offering this year and bought Merck & Co’s over-the-counter medicines business last year. In January, Bayer will operate under three divisions — pharmaceuticals, consumer health and crop sciences — increasing the pressure to develop new drugs.

Bayer has 17 experimental cancer therapies in development, many of them in the early stages of clinical testing. By contrast, Swiss rival Roche Holding AG, the industry leader in cancer, has 34.

Bayer’s most advanced medicines include ODM-201 to treat prostate cancer and copanlisib to treat incurable indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Research on ODM-201 is expected to run until 2018, and Bayer expanded its development programme for copanlisib in April.

“They are quite a niche player in this field,” said Florent Cespedes, an analyst at Societe General. “They are well prepared and they made it clear they will invest.”

Bayer spent $2 billion last year on drug research, while Roche spent about $8.5 billion.

Getting more cancer treatments approved will net Bayer a bigger share of an expanding market. Global spending on cancer medicines may reach $100 billion in 2018, up from $65 billion in 2013, according to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.

If approved, the new cancer drugs would join Nexavar, which won US approval 10 years ago this month and enabled Leverkusen-based Bayer to compete in the cancer drug market. Nexavar is used to treat certain patients with kidney, thyroid and liver tumours.

Bayer also sells bowel cancer drug Stivarga, which it developed. Onyx Pharmaceuticals is its partner on Stivarga.