Well, what do you say about this...the big bad pharma industry is back
swinging. Merck, the venerable big Pharma that got itself into hot
waters over Vioxx, is back in the game. This time the drug is Zolinza
or vorinostat, which was approved by the FDA today for treatment of
Cutaneous T cell Lymphoma. Zolinza is a HDAC inhibitor which is
likely to find use in a broad array of tumors.
While this is a big deal for Merck, and is a signal of its seriousness
to enter into Oncology market place in a big way, the drug actually
came to Merck from the labs of Aton Pharmaceuticals, a small biotech
which Merck bought in late 2003. Still, belegured Merck will welcome
this news as it takes the bite out of the Vioxx nastiness.
HDAC inhibitors are particularly attractive anti-cancer agents because
of their potent activity and relatively benign side effect profile.
Merck seems to have beat other HDAC inhibitors to the market,
especially the one from Gloucester Pharmaceuticals' FK228 also called
Romidepsin. At 2006 ASCO both Merck and Gloucester had shared the
data in CTCL which started the horse race between them.
While the CTCL indication is hardly going to be producing billions of
dollars, especially with Gloucester breathing down Merck's neck, the
real payoff will come when Zolinza trials in other tumors come
through. Currently Zolinza is being studied in a broad range of
tumors including Lung cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer and
many other solid tumor malignancies.
This news is big positive for Gloucester too. Now that the proof of
principle on HDAC has been established, this small privately held
biotech will suddenly be seen as an important target by all the top
pharma companies with dry pipelines, to provide them the lead in HDAC
inhibitor space. Gloucester is now in drivers seat to fetch the best
price for partnering with a big pharma.
Sometimes good things do happen to people that wait!
