Wednesday, December 27, 2023, at the Bristol-Myers Squibb Research and Development Center in Cambridge Crossing, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Adam Glanzman | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Bristol-Myers Squibb Considers Alzheimer’s disease its biggest market newly approved schizophrenia drugs, Coppenfeldexpected to eventually generate billions of dollars in revenue.
Company executives said in interviews that each therapeutic use they are studying for Cobenfy has billions of dollars of potential, including Alzheimer’s disease psychosis, Alzheimer’s agitation and Alzheimer’s cognition, bipolar disorder Affective disorders and autism. But Alzheimer’s disease is “a really huge market here,” Bristol-Myers Chief Financial Officer David Elkins told CNBC on Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
close There are 6 million people with Alzheimer’s disease in the United StatesAbout half of them are psychotic, or experience symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, Elkins said. Cobenfy could be first drug approved specifically to treat Alzheimer’s-related psychosis, chief commercializer says Officer Adam Lenkoski.
Atypical antipsychotics (drugs used to treat a range of psychiatric disorders) are commonly used to treat psychosis in people with Alzheimer’s disease, although they are not approved for this purpose. But those treatments were associated with an increased risk of death, while Cobenfy was not, according to Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Meanwhile, Alzheimer’s agitation, a symptom that can cause patients to feel restless and worried, is estimated to affect about 60 to 70 percent of patients. some research.
Bristol-Myers Squibb said on Monday it plans to release preliminary late-stage trial data on Cobenfy in the treatment of Alzheimer’s-related psychosis in the second half of this year, earlier than expected. The company also expects to begin Phase 3 trials in 2025 for Alzheimer’s agitation, Alzheimer’s cognitive and bipolar disorder, while studies in autism will begin in 2026.
JPMorgan analyst Chris Schott expects Cobenfy sales to reach about $5 billion by 2030, with peak sales potential of $10 billion across multiple therapeutic uses, according to a research note on Tuesday. That’s a huge boon for Bristol-Myers Squibb, which faces pressure to offset potential revenue losses from patent expirations on its best-selling treatments.
Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Cobenfy drug
Courtesy: Bristol-Myers Squibb
It’s a full-circle moment for Cobenfy, which, following its approval in September, became the first new treatment in decades to treat schizophrenia, which affects about 3 million U.S. adults. The drug comes from Bristol-Myers Squibb Acquires biotech company Karuna Therapeutics for $14 billion The end of 2023.
But the drug’s roots are in treating Alzheimer’s disease.
Eli Lilly originally tested part of the drug – xanomeline – in the 1990s to reduce cognitive decline, but shelved it due to serious side effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and constipation. Xanomeline activates certain so-called muscarinic receptors in the brain to reduce dopamine activity without causing the side effects associated with antipsychotics.
Andrew Miller, founder and former president of research and development at Karuna Therapeutics and now a consultant to Bristol-Myers Squibb, saw xanomeline’s potential in neuroscience and proposed combining xanomeline with another existing drug, trospium. (trospium) is used in conjunction with the theory to reduce these side effects. He later launched Karuna to develop the combination as a treatment for schizophrenia.
other breakthrough therapy Drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease have recently entered the market, including Biogen and Eisai’s Lakeby and Eli Lilly and CompanyIt’s Kisunla. These therapies work in part by clearing the brain of toxic plaques called amyloid, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s, to slow the decline of memory and thinking in early-stage Alzheimer’s patients.
But as people’s disease progresses, they can develop symptoms such as psychosis and agitation, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Elkins said.
“This is where Coppenfeld fits in,” he said. “If you can get rid of the psychosis, the agitation, people’s cognition will improve. Imagine how much of an impact this drug would have on these patients and their loved ones, for the entire nursing staff and the health care system. When you think about that It’s really exciting in this situation.”
