Breathing room
Almirall COPD assets give AZ time for respiratory pipeline to mature
AstraZeneca plc's acquisition of Almirall S.A.'s respiratory assets should buy the pharma time while its respiratory pipeline matures. The deal not only gives AstraZeneca a faster route to market in the COPD combination therapy race - moving it into third place behind GlaxoSmithKline plc and Novartis AG - but also gives AZ a greater range of choices for combination therapies in two device formats in a disease space where patient preference is important.
Inhaled therapies lead the line in AstraZeneca's respiratory franchise, but the long-term goal is to complement them with biologics for more severe disease - and AZ has one of the broadest pipelines of respiratory biologics in the industry, with two biologics in Phase III testing and a pair in Phase II...