2013 Alliance of The Year Nominee: Amgen/Astellas

It's time for the IN VIVO Blog's Sixth Annual Deal of the Year! competition. This year we're once again presenting awards in three categories to highlight the most interesting and creative deal making solutions of the year. The categories are: M&A of the Year, Alliance of the Year, and Financing of the Year. We'll supply the nominations (about a half dozen in each category throughout over the next week or so) and you, the voting public, will decide the winners (by voting early and often, commencing once we've announced all the nominees). Strap yourselves in, it's The Race for the Roger™.

In announcing a strategic alliance with Astellas Pharma in May, Amgen has placed an economic bet on Japan. It is also, indirectly, a bet on economic recovery in the U.S. and Europe, Japan’s two biggest export markets.

In fact, Amgen has been talking up its Asian ambitions since first broaching the idea at a business review meeting in New York last February. After rapid-fire acquisitions in Brazil and Turkey, and a partnership in Russia, “expanding into Japan and China are next on the Agenda,” said CEO Robert Bradway.

Four months later, Amgen inked a two-pronged alliance with Astellas. In the first stage, the partners co-develop and co-commercialize five Amgen drugs for the Japanese market: one in cardiovascular, one in  osteoporosis, and three oncology candidates. Among them are AMG145, the Phase III antibody against PCSK9 for hyperlipidemia and Phase II blinotumomab, the anti-CD19 bispecific BiTE antibody against hematological tumors picked up in its 2012 acquisition of Micromet. At a recent Credit Suisse event, Amgen CFO and EVP Jonathan Peacock projected the first launch in 2016.

The second stage, a joint-venture that is 51% owned by Amgen, opened in Tokyo in October. Operating as Amgen Astellas BioPharma KK, the JV is structured to allow Amgen to turn the operation into a wholly-owned Japanese affiliate as early as 2020, and a direct channel into Japan for any molecule in its portfolio including its six biosimilars in development. Eiichi Takahashi, a cardiologist in Pfizer’s Japan subsidiary who led Pfizer’s medical affairs organization for the Asia Pacific region, will head up the JV.



The move feels like a do-over. Amgen had launched a JV with Kirin Brewery in 1984, and in 1992 it formed Amgen KK in Japan, as a wholly owned subsidiary. It pulled the plug on Amgen KK in 2008, selling shares in the subsidiary to Takeda as part of an agreement in which it licensed 13 molecules to Takeda for development and commercialization in the Japanese market. Takeda paid $200 million upfront and is on the hook for over $700 million in development costs and success-based milestones, as well as Japan-specific royalties. Back in 2008, then-Amgen R&D chief Roger Perlmutter insisted to IN VIVO that Amgen was not "abandoning Japan." Rather, partnering was the answer.

And to be sure, partnering is still the answer. The Big Biotech knows first-hand the challenges, particularly as regards recruitment, in establishing a de-novo presence in Japan. But it is confident that it’s chosen the right partner in Astellas, whose strong cardio franchise and whose savvy moves in oncology recommended it to Amgen.

And it is confident that it’s targeted the right region in Japan, whose economy was the fastest growing in the developed world this year, goosed by the fiscal expansionary policies of Abenomics and by a recovery in exports – particularly car shipments, which grew 31% year-over-year last October. And according to Evaluate Pharma, Japan was the best performing region – using government-reported data – in terms of US$ Rx sales, posting 17% growth in 2010/2011 compared to 3.8% for Europe and 1.5% for the US, and likewise clobbering the US and Europe in terms of local currency growth.

And while the Japanese drug market has recently been slowed by biennial price reductions, generic inroads, and a price constraining national health budget, the future holds an easing of regulatory burden, an aging demographic, and a strong pipeline. Traditional regulations protecting the domestic market have crumbled over the past two decades, ushering in western investment and the presence of western firms. Takeda’s recent announcement naming GSK vaccines chief Christophe Weber as COO, putting him in line to succeed Yasuchika Hasegawa as CEO, is a symptom of this larger opening to the west.

In a canny move, Amgen, in its bold deal with Astellas, finds itself at the intersection of these global trends, and poised to cash in. Definitely worthy of our alliance of the year accolade. 

Thanks to Eddie O. for the flickr image // creative commons