Deal would bring new product for late stage Parkinsons into Solvay's portfolio
SOLVAY PHARMACEUTICALS announces today the launch of a friendly bid to acquire NEOPHARMA, a company based in Uppsala, Sweden. A number of the company’s largest shareholders, representing approximately 70% of outstanding shares, have already agreed to sell their interest to SOLVAY PHARMACEUTICALS. The operation is likely to be completed in the next few weeks. Through this acquisition SOLVAY PHARMACEUTICALS would gain the rights to their product DUODOPA®, an important new therapy for people suffering from late stage Parkinson’s Disease.
This would be SOLVAY’S initial commercial entry into treatment of Parkinson’s Disease, an important central nervous system (CNS) disease which has progressively debilitating motion disorders as a major consequence. Of all the neurodegenerative disorders it is second only to Alzheimer’s Disease in numbers of cases. Sales of therapies for CNS disorders already account for 20% of SOLVAY PHARMACEUTICALS’ revenue and 25% of R&D expenditures are focused on CNS development projects. Solvay’s R&D pipeline includes promising compounds for the treatment of earlier stage Parkinson’s Disease.
DUODOPA® is specifically appropriate for patients in late stages of this progressive disease where oral treatments are no longer effective. It has been commercially available in Sweden since February 2004 and is currently going through the mutual recognition procedure for approval in other major European countries. DUODOPA® is administered inside the upper intestine via a small tube inserted directly into the first part of the small bowel, or duodenum. A programmable pump allows individually tuned delivery of the active ingredients suspended as stable gel from a cassette worn outside the body. Better control of body movements can be achieved resulting in many patients becoming fully ambulatory.
Werner Cautreels, PhD, incoming CEO of SOLVAY PHARMACEUTICALS says: “DUODOPA® provides us a jump start into a market we strategically decided to add to our CNS franchise. It is a highly specialized product for use by top experts in the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. Our experiences with it over the coming years will put us in an optimal position to launch other Parkinson’s medicines as they become available”.
SOLVAY PHARMACEUTICALS is the pharmaceuticals business arm of SOLVAY. It is a research driven pharmaceutical company that seeks to fulfil carefully selected, unmet medical needs in the therapeutic areas of cardiology, gastroenterology, mental health and gynecology/andrology. SOLVAY PHARMACEUTICALS employs more than 7500 people worldwide. For more information, visit www.solvaypharmaceuticals.com.
SOLVAY is an international chemicals and pharmaceuticals group with headquarters in Brussels. It employs more than 30,000 people in 50 countries. In 2003 consolidated sales amounted to EUR 7.6 billion generated by its three activity sectors: Chemicals, Plastics and Pharmaceuticals. SOLVAY is listed on the Euronext 100 index of top European companies. Details are available at www.solvay.com.
