Applications of Nektar Therapeutics' technology
Nektar technologies are essential to six drugs approved in the US and/or Europe, including Roche's PEGASYS and PEGASYS combination therapy for the treatment of hepatitis C, Amgen's Neulasta for the treatment of neutropenia, Schering-Plough's PEG-Intron for Hepatitis C, Pharmacia's Somavert for acromegaly, Confluent's SprayGel for the prevention of surgical adhesions and an undisclosed diagnostic using PEGylation technology.
Using drug delivery technology to modify and improve the performance of existing drugs can extend patent protection for those products, as well as their competitive life in the marketplace. Offering a range of products designed around a single molecular entity can allow a company to offer a line of related products that cover a broader range of therapeutic and patient needs - thus ultimately increasing sales. An example of this is Amgen's Neulasta (pegfilgrastim), the sustained duration form of Neupogen (filgrastim). Nektar supplies PEG product that is used in the manufacture of Neulasta, a therapy for neutropenia that reduces injections from daily to once per chemotherapy cycle.
Nektar is also collaborating with Pfizer on the development of inhaleable insulin. Pfizer has a worldwide agreement with Aventis Pharma to manufacture insulin and to co-develop and co-market inhaleable insulin. Nektar is responsible for manufacturing the fine insulin powders and supplying the inhalers, for which it will receive a royalty on product sales.
It is estimated that there are approximately 3m patients with diabetes in the US who could benefit from insulin but do not currently take it due to the need for injections. Similarly, many diabetics do not take injected insulin as frequently as they should, thus leading to less than optimum care. The availability of an inhaled form of insulin addresses these patients' desires to avoid insulin injections, thus providing a new treatment option.
Applications of such technologies throughout the development process are becoming central to the success of many new drugs. This is especially true for macromolecular therapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies, therapeutic proteins and peptides, and gene therapies. Without application of drug delivery technology, many of these molecules might never become commercially viable products.