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In Memoriam
Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Fujifilm Holdings Corp.'s planned takeover of Toyama Chemical Co. may give it a medicine to challenge Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu within two years.
Fujifilm, Japan's only maker of photographic film, said Feb. 13 that it will buy 66 percent of the Tokyo-based drugmaker to diversify into pharmaceuticals as demand for camera supplies falls. The prize is an experimental influenza treatment that may also fight bird flu and drug-resistant strains. If approved by U.S. regulators, the pill may be ready for sale by December 2009, said Yousuke Furuta, the Toyama scientist who discovered it.
The emergence of flu strains capable of evading Tamiflu are prompting doctors to seek alternatives to Roche's best-seller, which brought in sales of $2 billion in 2006. Tokyo-based Fujifilm is paying 154.6 billion yen ($1.4 billion) for the Toyama stake and said it will speed study of the treatment, known as T-705, to prepare for a pandemic that scientists say bird flu may spark.
``By definition, this is a very good target'' drug, said Peter Palese, chair of Mount Sinai School of Medicine's department of microbiology in New York.
The product targets polymerase, an enzyme viruses use to replicate inside the body. The pill's development would be an advance against seasonal flu, and also may give doctors their first weapon against Rift Valley fever that's killed thousands of Africans, scientists say.
Doctors are reluctant to prescribe ribavirin, a 37-year-old polymerase inhibitor used to treat hepatitis C, for flu and other viruses because of its propensity to also damage human cells, Palese said.
`Very Promising'
``This Toyama compound is the first one that is very promising because it is much more specific,'' he said in an interview in Bangkok last month.
Initial studies on 40 patients in Japan found no serious side effects, Toyama's Furuta said.
Fujifilm fell 0.3 percent to 3,900 yen yesterday in Tokyo, extending to 18 percent the stock's drop this year. It has declined 6.8 percent the past five years, compared with a 56 percent gain in Japan's Topix index.
Fujifilm wants ``a strategic business alliance'' with Toyama that will add a treatment arm to its medical unit, spokeswoman Maki Nogaito said in a Feb. 14 e-mail.
Toyama fell 1 yen to 874 yen yesterday, valuing the company at $1.6 billion.
Toyama began recruiting 150 people last month to gauge the best dosage for treating flu. Furuta aims to complete a final trial during the next northern hemisphere winter, enabling regulators to review data as early as September next year under an accelerated process, he said in a Jan. 31 interview.
Emerging Resistance
Reports last month of a mutant seasonal flu virus resistant to Tamiflu reminded doctors of the need to stockpile and prescribe ``mixtures of antivirals,'' said Albert Osterhaus, head of virology at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Tamiflu-evading H1N1 viruses were found in patient samples collected during the past three months from 17 countries, the World Health Organization in Geneva said in a Feb. 14 statement. Of 1,703 specimens analyzed from Europe, North America, Australia and Hong Kong, 237 harbored the mutant bug.
Although it is possible that a Tamiflu-resistant seasonal flu virus could recombine with the H5N1 avian strain and pass on the mutant gene, the agency isn't changing its advice on stockpiling for now, it said last week.
Roche said last month Tamiflu sales will fall this year as governments worldwide complete their stockpiles in preparation for a pandemic.
``The precise effectiveness of any drug during a pandemic is difficult to predict,'' Martina Rupp, a spokeswoman for Basel, Switzerland-based Roche, said in an e-mail yesterday. ``Nobody knows which strain will give rise to the next pandemic.''
Glaxo's Relenza
GlaxoSmithKline Plc's inhaled medicine, Relenza, is less likely to encounter resistance, Australian researchers said in a company-sponsored study in August 2006. Its active ingredient is mostly taken up by tissues in the upper airway and may not overcome the virus outside the lungs, a 1999 study found.
Adamantanes, a drug class discovered in the 1960s, isn't recommended by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a flu treatment because of widespread resistance.
Resistance to Toyama's pill hasn't been found in patients, and laboratory experiments demonstrated that it may be better protected than Tamiflu, Furuta said. One reason is that T-705 stops flu replicating its genetic material, whereas Tamiflu targets a single protein on the surface of the virus, he said.
`So Beautiful'
Furuta says he remembers the day in 1998 when he discovered T-705. He was checking the virus-fighting potential of about 20,000 compounds in cell cultures. In one dish, the cells remained undamaged more than two days after the virus was added. That was the dish containing T-705.
``The cells were so beautiful,'' Furuta, 51, said. ``I couldn't believe my eyes.''
He repeated the experiment with similar results and spent the next year identifying how the compound worked.
Scientists have known for decades that viral enzymes are a good target in the search for new flu treatments, but success in using that approach has been elusive, said Maria Zambon, head of the flu laboratory at the U.K.'s Health Protection Agency in London.
``The Japanese have made wonderful strides in the last 10 to 15 years in unraveling the structural features of polymerases,'' a crucial step in the design of drugs targeting the enzyme, she said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net ; Kanoko Matsuyama in Tokyo at at kmatsuyama2@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 18, 2008 10:21 EST
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aBVpXpIDgCdY&refer=japan
Fujifilm, Japan's only maker of photographic film, said Feb. 13 that it will buy 66 percent of the Tokyo-based drugmaker to diversify into pharmaceuticals as demand for camera supplies falls. The prize is an experimental influenza treatment that may also fight bird flu and drug-resistant strains. If approved by U.S. regulators, the pill may be ready for sale by December 2009, said Yousuke Furuta, the Toyama scientist who discovered it.
The emergence of flu strains capable of evading Tamiflu are prompting doctors to seek alternatives to Roche's best-seller, which brought in sales of $2 billion in 2006. Tokyo-based Fujifilm is paying 154.6 billion yen ($1.4 billion) for the Toyama stake and said it will speed study of the treatment, known as T-705, to prepare for a pandemic that scientists say bird flu may spark.
``By definition, this is a very good target'' drug, said Peter Palese, chair of Mount Sinai School of Medicine's department of microbiology in New York.
The product targets polymerase, an enzyme viruses use to replicate inside the body. The pill's development would be an advance against seasonal flu, and also may give doctors their first weapon against Rift Valley fever that's killed thousands of Africans, scientists say.
Doctors are reluctant to prescribe ribavirin, a 37-year-old polymerase inhibitor used to treat hepatitis C, for flu and other viruses because of its propensity to also damage human cells, Palese said.
`Very Promising'
``This Toyama compound is the first one that is very promising because it is much more specific,'' he said in an interview in Bangkok last month.
Initial studies on 40 patients in Japan found no serious side effects, Toyama's Furuta said.
Fujifilm fell 0.3 percent to 3,900 yen yesterday in Tokyo, extending to 18 percent the stock's drop this year. It has declined 6.8 percent the past five years, compared with a 56 percent gain in Japan's Topix index.
Fujifilm wants ``a strategic business alliance'' with Toyama that will add a treatment arm to its medical unit, spokeswoman Maki Nogaito said in a Feb. 14 e-mail.
Toyama fell 1 yen to 874 yen yesterday, valuing the company at $1.6 billion.
Toyama began recruiting 150 people last month to gauge the best dosage for treating flu. Furuta aims to complete a final trial during the next northern hemisphere winter, enabling regulators to review data as early as September next year under an accelerated process, he said in a Jan. 31 interview.
Emerging Resistance
Reports last month of a mutant seasonal flu virus resistant to Tamiflu reminded doctors of the need to stockpile and prescribe ``mixtures of antivirals,'' said Albert Osterhaus, head of virology at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Tamiflu-evading H1N1 viruses were found in patient samples collected during the past three months from 17 countries, the World Health Organization in Geneva said in a Feb. 14 statement. Of 1,703 specimens analyzed from Europe, North America, Australia and Hong Kong, 237 harbored the mutant bug.
Although it is possible that a Tamiflu-resistant seasonal flu virus could recombine with the H5N1 avian strain and pass on the mutant gene, the agency isn't changing its advice on stockpiling for now, it said last week.
Roche said last month Tamiflu sales will fall this year as governments worldwide complete their stockpiles in preparation for a pandemic.
``The precise effectiveness of any drug during a pandemic is difficult to predict,'' Martina Rupp, a spokeswoman for Basel, Switzerland-based Roche, said in an e-mail yesterday. ``Nobody knows which strain will give rise to the next pandemic.''
Glaxo's Relenza
GlaxoSmithKline Plc's inhaled medicine, Relenza, is less likely to encounter resistance, Australian researchers said in a company-sponsored study in August 2006. Its active ingredient is mostly taken up by tissues in the upper airway and may not overcome the virus outside the lungs, a 1999 study found.
Adamantanes, a drug class discovered in the 1960s, isn't recommended by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a flu treatment because of widespread resistance.
Resistance to Toyama's pill hasn't been found in patients, and laboratory experiments demonstrated that it may be better protected than Tamiflu, Furuta said. One reason is that T-705 stops flu replicating its genetic material, whereas Tamiflu targets a single protein on the surface of the virus, he said.
`So Beautiful'
Furuta says he remembers the day in 1998 when he discovered T-705. He was checking the virus-fighting potential of about 20,000 compounds in cell cultures. In one dish, the cells remained undamaged more than two days after the virus was added. That was the dish containing T-705.
``The cells were so beautiful,'' Furuta, 51, said. ``I couldn't believe my eyes.''
He repeated the experiment with similar results and spent the next year identifying how the compound worked.
Scientists have known for decades that viral enzymes are a good target in the search for new flu treatments, but success in using that approach has been elusive, said Maria Zambon, head of the flu laboratory at the U.K.'s Health Protection Agency in London.
``The Japanese have made wonderful strides in the last 10 to 15 years in unraveling the structural features of polymerases,'' a crucial step in the design of drugs targeting the enzyme, she said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net ; Kanoko Matsuyama in Tokyo at at kmatsuyama2@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 18, 2008 10:21 EST
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aBVpXpIDgCdY&refer=japan