l******g
发帖数: 1623 | 1 是生物制药胜了传统制药， 还是其他原因？
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-roche-genentech-idI
(Reuters) - When Roche paid $46.8 billion in 2009 to gain full ownership of
Genentech, fears were rife that the arrival of the Swiss men in suits would
stifle the free-wheeling innovative culture at the California-based biotech.
Three years on, however, the jeans-wearing scientists in San Francisco have
proven they are the ones driving the drugs pipeline of the 116-year-old
Basel-based pharma giant, casting a shadow over Roche's own research
operations.
Roche's four top-selling medicines in 2011 - Rituxan, Avastin, Herceptin and
Lucentis - were all cooked up in Genentech's labs and accounted for 55
percent of total pharma sales last year.
And five of the seven most promising drugs in Roche's pipeline, identified
by brokerage Bernstein, stem from Genentech, including "armed antibody"
experimental anti-cancer drug TDM-1, which received top-billing at this year
's meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
A decision last week to close Roche's 80-year-old Nutley, New Jersey
research facility, which gave the world Valium, underscores how Genentech's
Research and Early Development operations, known as gRED, are outshining
Roche's own unit called pRED (Roche Pharma Research and Early Development).
After culling 1,000 jobs at Nutley, both gRED and pRED will have around 2,
000 staff each, a downsizing of the legacy Roche wing that is prompting
veteran Roche employees to fear that a stealthy Genentech reverse takeover
is underway.
"In essence, the merger of Roche and Genentech was about Genentech going
global," said Andrew Weiss, analyst at Swiss private bank Vontobel. "At the
time they probably had the upper hand and I think that hasn't changed."
NAIL IN COFFIN
Genentech's approach of unlocking the biological pathway of a disease to
find a specific target for its drugs is paying dividends, compared to the
old-school method of developing a drug before the biology is truly
understood.
While the biotech notches up one success after another, the old Roche labs
have been hit by a litany of high-profile and costly failures.
Most recently the Swiss company halted clinical trials of experimental heart
drug dalcetrapib - one of the several new medicines aimed at boosting
levels of beneficial cholesterol - a failure which perhaps was the final
nail in Nutley's coffin.
Roche is also now starting to adopt the Genentech approach by trying to
understand the chain of events that cause disease.
The closure of Roche's former U.S. headquarters comes on top of a 2010
programme which aimed to slash 6 percent of its workforce worldwide or 4,800
jobs over two years. In this cull, gRED got off more lightly than pRED,
which shed 600 positions.
Manuel Wyss from trade union Unia says employees in Switzerland see no great
threat at present as the firm already slashed 770 positions in the country
under the 2010 programme.
The family of Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche, who founded the firm in Basel in 1896
, still holds a big stake. The company is splashing out 550 million Swiss
francs ($576 million) on a 178-metre-tall office tower that will dominate
the skyline.
Schwan has said Roche is committed to Switzerland despite the impact of the
strong safe-haven Swiss franc on costs in recent years, but the additional
axe-wielding at Nutley raises questions as to whether more cutbacks are on
the horizon.
"The announcement definitely indicates that Roche's margins are more under
pressure than previously thought," said Birgit Kulhoff, analyst at private
bank Rahn & Bodmer in Zurich.
GENENTECH VS ROCHE?
The Nutley cull also ensnared Basel-based Jean-Jacques Garaud, Roche's
French/American head of pRED, who admitted in an interview last year that
researchers from the different operations work very separately.
"We talk to each other, but we don't talk about science too much. We talk
about life - books and movies," he told Reuters last September.
Keeping the two research units autonomous was a concession to Genentech
which feared the merger would damage innovation and send top scientists and
managers heading for the door.
As Roche sought to redefine itself after the Genentech deal, it quit the U.S
. industry lobby group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America
(PhRMA) in 2009 to join the biotechnology association BIO.
It also markets its drugs in the United States under the Genentech brand and
Roche's Chief Medical Officer, Hal Barron, comes from the San-Francisco
firm.
Genentech staff seem happy with the set-up, stressing at a recent meeting in
New York that Roche respected the biotech's culture as well as its science.
Jeans still prevail over formal business attire, while Roche staff who moved
to San Francisco when the U.S. headquarters were shifted there in 2009 have
integrated well, they say.
It hasn't been all smooth sailing at Genentech since 2009.
The biotech company suffered a blow last year when the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration revoked approval of its blockbuster drug Avastin as a
treatment for breast cancer. The drug also failed in clinical trials for
stomach and prostate cancer.
But Vontobel's Weiss said Genentech's top-notch reputation still helps
attract workers.
"Everybody wants to go there and write a paper and put their name on it and
Genentech. If you are lucky to find something that is where it's potentially
going to happen."
While Roche argues maintaining two research units gives researchers the
freedom to tackle problems from different angles, it inevitably pits the two
against one another.
"The discovery track record of pRED over the past decade has not been
exactly overwhelming, particularly in comparison to its counterpart in south
San Francisco," said Fabian Wenner, head of European Healthcare Research at
Kepler Capital Markets.
"The question is whether this can be changed or whether something more
fundamental needs to be done?" ($1 = 0.9546 Swiss francs)
(Additional reporting by Bill Berkrot in New York; Editing by Peter Graff) | L**********r
发帖数: 143 | 2 Good Article. Thanks for sharinf it.
of
would
biotech.
have
and
【在 l******g 的大作中提到】
: 是生物制药胜了传统制药， 还是其他原因？
: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-roche-genentech-idI
: (Reuters) - When Roche paid $46.8 billion in 2009 to gain full ownership of
: Genentech, fears were rife that the arrival of the Swiss men in suits would
: stifle the free-wheeling innovative culture at the California-based biotech.
: Three years on, however, the jeans-wearing scientists in San Francisco have
: proven they are the ones driving the drugs pipeline of the 116-year-old
: Basel-based pharma giant, casting a shadow over Roche's own research
: operations.
: Roche's four top-selling medicines in 2011 - Rituxan, Avastin, Herceptin and
| d*******1
发帖数: 854 | 3 记者文科的？
of
would
biotech.
have
and
【在 l******g 的大作中提到】
: 是生物制药胜了传统制药， 还是其他原因？
: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-roche-genentech-idI
: (Reuters) - When Roche paid $46.8 billion in 2009 to gain full ownership of
: Genentech, fears were rife that the arrival of the Swiss men in suits would
: stifle the free-wheeling innovative culture at the California-based biotech.
: Three years on, however, the jeans-wearing scientists in San Francisco have
: proven they are the ones driving the drugs pipeline of the 116-year-old
: Basel-based pharma giant, casting a shadow over Roche's own research
: operations.
: Roche's four top-selling medicines in 2011 - Rituxan, Avastin, Herceptin and
| f*********e
发帖数: 1144 | 4 hehe, 写地挺好的，笔墨不错，那个被采访说we talk about life...太搞了～～：D
【在 d*******1 的大作中提到】
: 记者文科的？
:
: of
: would
: biotech.
: have
: and
| O*******f
发帖数: 926 | 5 Roche的pRED和gRED，感觉就像RIM曾经的双CEO一样。最终还是分久必合合久必分的循
环。
关闭Roche曾经的美国中心，Roche和Genentech在人员（特别是行政人员）上的融合，
估计来看，表面风平浪静，其实应该是暗流涌动。其他公司应该有机会下手挖人了。
行业前景暗淡啊。 |
|
