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- Focus on the patient
Focus on the patient
Tachi Yamada was a physician and teacher of physicians before he joined GSK to work with scientists and other specialists in R&D. He retains a passion for helping improve the quality of life for patients and his experience as a physician has influenced his work as head of R&D for GSK.
“In the hospital wards, I would sometimes place a photograph of the patient above their bed,” says Tachi. “The picture showed them when they were active and healthy, and I would then challenge my staff to work towards the goal of helping the patient back to being like the person in the picture. I would urge them to focus on the patient and their needs. Today, it is the same approach for our work at GSK, where we seek greater insight into the needs of patients and to apply these insights in R&D to create better medicines.”
Tachi and his teams also talk to doctors and other healthcare experts to gather information that will help shape the direction and priorities of the complex R&D process that leads to innovative medicines of value. Through a range of partnerships, the company has access to the talent, ideas and assets beyond the boundaries of its own R&D organisation. In 2005, GSK set up a new internal management team to deliver more compounds through partnerships with biotechnology companies, small and mid-sized pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions.
A maturing pipeline
The strength of GSK’s work on medicines and vaccines of the future can be seen in the product development pipeline, one that is growing and maturing. At the end of February 2006, the company had 149 projects in the clinic including 95 new chemical entities (NCEs), 25 vaccines and 29 product line extensions (PLEs). Of these, 11 NCEs and 9 vaccines were in phase III registration, 46 NCEs and 9 vaccines were in phase II and 38 NCEs and 7 vaccines were in phase I. This is an increase of 70% over the number of NCEs that GSK had at the end of 2001.
“There has been a marked increase in the size of our NCE portfolio and an increasing maturity of the pipeline.”
Seven product filings are planned for 2006, including two vaccines (Cervarix for cervical cancer and a potential H5N1 pandemic flu vaccine), Allermist for allergic rhinitis, eltrombopag for patients with low platelet count, Tykerb for breast cancer, mepolizumab for hypereosinophilic syndrome and Lamictal XR, a once-daily formulation for epilepsy.
GSK also expects eight major new assets to enter phase III development during 2006, significantly expanding the late-stage pipeline. In addition to the oncology products, casopitant and pazopanib, GSK expects new assets for Alzheimer’s disease, HIV, meningitis, lupus and diabetes to enter phase III development.
“There has been a marked increase in the size of our NCE portfolio and an increasing maturity of the pipeline. All this indicates that the way we structure R&D is paying off,” says Tachi, who is retiring from GSK in June 2006 to take up a new role as Executive Director of the Global Health Program for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Delivering medicines of value
“GSK has one of the most promising pipelines in the industry. Our challenge, going forward, is to deliver to patients the many medicines we have in development, whilst continuing to grow the pipeline,” says Moncef Slaoui, who will succeed Tachi as Chairman, R&D, in June 2006. “Along with my colleagues in R&D, we are embracing this challenge and we fully expect to be able to deliver medicines of great value for patients and for GSK in the coming years.”
GSK had 149 projects in the clinic at the end of February 2006. This included 95 new chemical entities (NCEs), an increase of 70% over 2001.
Confronting cancer
“Cancer remains an area of substantial unmet medical need. Our strategy is focused on meeting all aspects of a cancer patient’s treatment,” says Tachi. GSK is building on its existing oncology portfolio to good effect. “We now have an oncology pipeline which is one of the strongest and most promising in our industry.” In November 2005, investors and financial analysts were updated on this rapidly expanding pipeline. In 2006, GSK expects four new oncology medicines to be in final-stage clinical trials – Tykerb (lapatinib) for breast cancer, eltrombopag for patients with low platelet count, casopitant to help patients overcome the side-effects of chemotherapy and pazopanib for prevention of tumour growth.
