Elixir Hopes to Cash In On Sirtuins Too After GSK / Sirtris Deal

For the first time in almost 10 months, and not surprisingly, coming on the heels of the Glaxo Smithkline (GSK) / Sirtris buyout that occurred last week, Elixir Pharmaceuticals (ELXR) has announced that it has been granted a patent for a class of SIRT2 regulators. I came down as pretty negative on the Sirtris deal in this post last week and nothing I’ve read by people presumably smarter than me has changed my mind. I still think it’s a terrible move by GSK but it certainly does teach us a lesson about marketing, sales and the media.

Neither company has illustrated proof of concept with sirtuin regulators in a trial with FDA approved endpoints or even in preclinical models. In that respect, the companies are much more similar that they are different, however, in this case, the science wasn’t the deciding factor. So why, you ask, did Sirtris get a buyout at an 84% premium and Elixir have to sign a license agreement with Siena Biotech S.p.A to develop the compounds? Marketing.

I imagine that while Elixir was “wasting time” validating the science behind sirtuins and their compounds, Sirtris was having IPOs, running clinical trials with non-approvable FDA endpoints using a drug (resveratrol), that would never in a million years make it to the clinic and finally, frequently publishing press releases (averaging 5-10 a month in ‘08).

Clearly, Sirtris and the marketing machine won this battle. It is a lesson I won’t soon forget in my nascent pharmaceutical business development career.

Comments

[razormdthe2nd:]

…I absolutely agree that the deal is utter nonsense and probably some some GSK’s manager self-promoting idea to keep GSK at the “forefront” of science…the only things really accomplished were some venture capitalists no doubt cleaned up and the odds that we’ll all will be paying more for GSK drugs have increased substantially…what’s really disgusting is thinking about what 750 million dollars COULD have accomplished for healthcare in the third world countries.

2008 Apr 29 11:25 PM

[User 186025:]

they are also buying some all star talent, and elixir is seen as the second place company in this field so they were left to make it on their own. This isn't really about resveratrol, its about a new synthetic chemical that is far more powerfull than resveratrol that can actually slow down the aging process and treat a lot of existing health problems at the same time. In a way its almost the ultimate drug we are talking about here. The story is just too good to pass on and I don't blame GSK for buying them.

2008 Apr 30 05:54 PM

[andi:]

wait this is not the worst that happened. Today scientists discovered compound that they consider a major breakthrough in the fight against cancer whose mechanism is to block sirtruins which they think is the cause of cancer because they destroy an important anti-cancer gene. The compound shields the gene from the destructive effects of sritruins. Check out the linkhttp://news.bbc.co...
What a horrible deal. I can't believe they were that stupid. But i guess that they might be working on a compound that might be similar to the sirtruins but which does not harm the gene in question, otherwise they are screwed.

2008 May 08 05:19 AM