Doubling up for half-life

At least five replacement therapies are marketed for hemophilia, and it is relatively easy to make recombinant Factor VIII and Factor IX, the missing clotting factors that lead to the disease. As a result, companies generally compete by tailoring dosing methods and schedules to a broader set of patient preferences.

Under a pair of deals announced last week, Wyeth is turning to protein delivery partners to help develop second-generation products with longer half-lives. WYE (Madison, N.J.) markets ReFacto recombinant Factor VIII (rFVIII) for hemophilia A and also has the only marketed rFactor IX, BeneFIX, for hemophilia B. In 2006, WYE posted BeneFIX sales of $304 million and ReFacto sales of $65 million...