AstraZeneca buys Pfizer’s rare disease gene therapies, taps new R&D leader to succeed Mene Pangalos 

AstraZeneca’s Alexion subsidiary is snapping up a suite of Pfizer’s preclinical gene therapies in a move to expand its toolkit in rare disease R&D.

Sharon Barr

The deal, which the companies said is worth up to $1 billion, was unveiled as AstraZeneca also announced that Mene Pangalos will step down as EVP, biopharma R&D. Succeeding him in that role early next year — and joining the senior executive team in a few days — will be Sharon Barr, the current head of research and product development at Alexion.

“We are acquiring a dozen of preclinical programs, some of them with entry into clinical in the next two to three years,” Alexion CEO Marc Dunoyer said in a media call for AstraZeneca’s second quarter earnings.

Pfizer revealed in January that it’s seeking to divest a significant portion of its early-stage research programs in rare disease as part of a “refocusing” effort.

AstraZeneca has been looking for ways to step up its genomic medicine game since acquiring Alexion for $39 billion, Dunoyer previously told Endpoints News. In October, AstraZeneca acquired LogicBio, which is developing an adeno-associated virus-based gene therapy as well as gene-editing tools.

Marc Dunoyer

The deal with Pfizer comes with a number of AAV capsids that can be used to deliver cargos for both gene therapy and gene editing — and Alexion “will seek to welcome talent from Pfizer associated with the portfolio,” growing the gene therapy team to 80, CEO Pascal Soriot added on the call.

“This is part of our overall investment in a series of small- to medium-sized business development deals, expanding our technologies and our platforms in rare disease research,” he said.

While Pfizer had also said it wanted to offload a gene therapy manufacturing facility, Dunoyer said that was not part of the deal negotiations.

Barr to replace Pangalos 

Meanwhile, Soriot clarified during the call that Barr’s appointment “does not signal an integration” between AstraZeneca and Alexion, with Barr to be replaced at Alexion. “We want to make sure that we rotate people across the company,” he said.

Pascal Soriot

Pangalos joined AstraZeneca in 2010, a couple of years before Soriot took over as CEO. Pangalos landed his current role in the wake of a major revamp in 2019, which carved out R&D and commercial posts specifically for oncology — and grouped the rest under biopharma. He took charge of discovery through late-stage development across cardiovascular, renal and metabolism, as well as respiratory and immunology.

In a statement, Soriot praised Pangalos for “delivering a greater than five-fold improvement in productivity,” driving deeper partnerships and championing the use of new technologies.

“In particular, I would like to pay tribute to the role he played in AstraZeneca’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and in overseeing the creation of the DISC – our new R&D Centre in Cambridge, UK,” Soriot added.

Barr, who’s been with Alexion since 2013, came into the fold following the 2020 buyout. In her new position, she will oversee the expansion of the pharma giant’s several existing franchises, including Farxiga (used for diabetes, chronic kidney disease and heart failure), asthma treatment Fasenra and the recently-approved RSV antibody Beyfortus. She will also be pushing late-stage programs, such as the Ionis-partnered antisense ATTR eplontersen, over the finish line.

She will spend the next months with Pangalos to complete the handover, with Pangalos staying on until March, Soriot told reporters.

Pipeline pruning 

In its Q2 earnings presentation, AstraZeneca also noted it will drop two programs for hematological malignancies — a Phase II CDK9 inhibitor called AZD4573, which was being tested both as monotherapy and in combination with the BTK inhibitor Calquence, and a Phase I program, AZD0466, targeting BCL2/xL.

Susan Galbraith

Both molecules target cell death mechanisms, according to Susan Galbraith, EVP of oncology R&D.

“The therapeutic index for these is relatively narrow and overall the benefit-risk was not viewed to be one that we felt was able to go forward into subsequent trials, but we’ve got a very robust hematology pipeline that’s coming too and we have other molecules that we’ll be advancing,” she said.

Similar thinking went behind the decision to cut AZD3366 for cardiovascular disease, Pangalos suggested — programs were cut not because they’re not working but because the profile isn’t competitive enough.

The company also reiterated the previously reported decisions to end development of AZD0186, an oral GLP-1 candidate for type 2 diabetes, and brazikumab, a late-stage IL-23 for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

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