Despite the influx of recent, positive news from Bristol-Myers Squibb, CEO Lamberto Andreotti remained a bit cagey during today’s JP Morgan presentation about the company’s plan this year to recover from major drugs like Abilify and Baraclude going off-patent.
The past three weeks alone have been quite bullish for the pharma giant: With the “earlier-than-expected” approval of Opdivo for lung cancer – it performed well enough to cut clinical studies short.
He added that BMS has “aggressive plans” for adding more preclinical immuno-oncology assets over the next 12-24 months. It’s also working on purportedly strong early stage monoclonal antibody clinical assets: Urelumab, lirilumab and anti lag-3 monotherapy and combination regimens.
And the R&D doesn’t end at immuno-oncology: It’s focused on hematologic malignancies, virology – particularly with HIV and HPV – and has initiated a number of programs centered on fibrosis. While the company’s main focus is on small molecules and biologics, Andreotti said, its research arem is focused on a number of platforms – particularly antibody drug conjugates.
“2015 is a very important year for the company; we’re very confident in the future,” Andreotti said.
But this is all he had to say about the off-patent BMS assets, which should take quite the revenue toll:
“Obviously in the short term we’ll lose exclusivity of Abilify and Baraclude, and we’ll lose a full year of impact – so our portfolio will continue to transform,” Andreotti said.
