AstraZeneca plc ( , , ) is an British-Swedish
pharmaceutical company
formed on 6 April 1999 by the re
merger of Swedish
Astra AB and British
Zeneca Group
plc. Zeneca had been part of
Imperial Chemical Industries
(ICI), as three divisions that were spun off from ICI on 1 June
1993.
It
is a public company and is listed on
the London Stock Exchange, the
New York Stock
Exchange
and the OMX exchange. It
is a constituent of the
FTSE 100
Index.
History
The
company's origins date from 1912, when Atlas Chemical
Industries was founded by demerger
from DuPont in Wilmington
, Delaware
, United
States, in 1912. Subsequently, Atlas Chemical
Industries acquired Stuart
Pharmaceuticals (founded by Arthur Hanisch in Pasadena
, California
, U.S., in 1941) in 1961 before itself being bought
by ICI in 1972. In 1993 ICI demerged this
pharmaceuticals business, as well as its
agrochemicals and
specialties businesses, to form
Zeneca
Group plc.
Astra AB
was founded in 1913 by 400 doctors and
apothecaries in Södertälje
, Sweden. In 1949 the company developed
Xylocaine, a
local anesthetic. In 1994 the company
formed a joint venture with
Merck to
market
Losec, an
ulcer-treatment drug.
In 1999
Astra AB and
Zeneca Group
plc merged to form
AstraZeneca plc.
In 2005 the company announced an arrangement with
Astex for the discovery, development and
commercialisation of novel small molecule inhibitors of
protein kinase B for use as
anti-cancer agents. In the same year it
announced a collaboration with
Avanir for
research and licensing in the area of Reverse Cholesterol Transport
(RCT) enhancing compounds for the treatment of
cardiovascular disease. It also
announced an alliance with
Schering
AG for research and licensing in the area of
selective
glucocorticoid receptor agonists (SEGRAs). It also announced
that it had become a Diamond Member of the Pennsylvania Bio
commerce organization.
In 2006, following a collaborative relationship begun in 2004,
AstraZeneca acquired
Cambridge Antibody Technology
in a deal worth £702 million .
Also in 2006 it formed an alliance with
Abbott Laboratories in relation to
Crestor and
TriCor,
commencing that year and extending to at least 2009.
In 2007 it reported that it had entered into an alliance with
Bristol-Myers Squibb to form a
global collaboration to develop and commercialise two
investigational drugs (
saxagliptin and
dapagliflozin) beginning from
2007.
Also in 2007 AstraZeneca acquired
MedImmune for about $15.2 billion. AstraZeneca
consolidated its biologics portfolio in MedImmune and Cambridge
Antibody Technology which was rebranded to create a dedicated
biologics division known as 'MedImmune'.
Operations
AstraZeneca develops, manufactures, and sells pharmaceuticals to
treat disorders in the
gastrointestinal,
cardiac and
vascular,
neurological and
psychiatric,
infection,
respiratory,
pathological inflammation and
oncology areas.
The
corporate headquarters are in London, United Kingdom, the research and development (R&D)
headquarters are in Södertälje. Major R&D centres are located in India,
Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.
Zeneca has a large R&D centre in Cheshire
, U.K.; this
centre acts as one of Zeneca's main hubs.
AstraZeneca has laboratories in a large
country estate on the east side of the A34
road north of the Monk's Heath
crossroads in Cheshire in
England.
Products
AstraZeneca specialises in prescription medicines to fight disease
in several therapeutic areas. Year-on sales information can be
found through AstraZeneca
annual
reports. The following is a list of key products found on the
AstraZeneca website.
Generic- drug
names are given in parentheses following the brand name.
-
Anaesthetics
-
Cardiovascular
-
Gastrointestinal
-
Infection
-
Neuroscience
-
Oncology
-
Respiratory and
Inflammation
Controversies
Seroquel: adverse effects and trial procedures
AstraZeneca has stated that the
atypical-antipsychotic drug,
Seroquel, is the subject of four
class-action lawsuits in
Canada. Also, in the U.S., there were multiple
product-liability cases alleging
personal injury, namely, that Seroquel
caused people to develop
diabetes.
The company has indicated its intention to seek approval for
Seroquel to treat psychiatric conditions such as
depression and general
anxiety disorder.
Note as
well that scientific findings regarding a new sustained-release form of
the drug were announced at a conference in Madrid
, Spain, in
March 2007. At the time the data regarding the new drug were
discussed, the drug had not been approved for sale by any health
regulatory body in any country.
During 2005 and 2006
clinical trials
were carried out to examine the possibilities of further
development of Seroquel.
Test persons were recruited from research
centres in Russia, Ukraine
, Poland,
Bulgaria
and India. As part of the trials half of the
test persons were given a
placebo and
stopped their medication. As a result thirty-six test persons
relapsed into illness. One test person committed
suicide, possibly as a result of quitting his
medication. AstraZeneca denied that the suicide was related to the
testing procedures. Ethical concerns were raised over the issue of
carrying out trials in less-developed countries because of lower
requirements for getting trials approved and overall lower trial
costs.
In 2008, 45% of the test persons in AstraZeneca medical trials came
from Asia;
Eastern- and
Central Europe; and South America. The same
year 13.5% of the total sales were made in these regions. In
contrast 86% of total sales were made in Japan, North America and
Western Europe.
Late-stage trial failures
AstraZeneca has experienced a run of failures of drugs in
late-stage clinical trials. These include
Galida for diabetes,
Exanta to prevent
thrombosis,
NXY-059 for acute
ischemic stroke,
Iressa for
lung cancer,
and
AGI-1067 for prevention of
atherosclerosis. With patents expiring on
older drugs, this threatens future revenue growth.
MedImmune takeover
After this long run of failed late-stage clinical trials, on 19
June 2007 AstraZeneca completed the acquisition of vaccine maker
MedImmune, paying $15.2 billion primarily for its drug-development
pipeline. Analysts have criticised this take-over, claiming that
AstraZeneca paid too much. AstraZeneca consolidated its biologics
portfolio in MedImmune and Cambridge Antibody Technology (acquired
in 2007) and this biologics portfolio was rebranded to create a
dedicated, global biologics organisation known as 'MedImmune'. Amid
allegations of broken promises over this consolidation, AstraZeneca
presented the new MedImmune to investors on 7 December 2007.
Nexium
The company's most successful medication is
omeprazole. When it is manufactured the result is
a mixture of two
mirror-imaged molecules,
R and S. Both are converted to the same active molecule in the
body. Two years before the omeprazole patent expired AstraZeneca
patented S-omeprazole in pure form, pointing that since some people
metabolise R-omeprazole slowly, pure S-omeprazole treatment would
give higher dose efficiency and less interindividual variation. The
company marketed
Nexium, as it would a
brand new drug. This practice is criticised because it maintains
the profits of drug companies at the expense of patients and public
healthcare systems.
On 16
August, 2007, Marcia Angell, former
editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of
Medicine and a lecturer in social medicine at the Harvard
Medical School
, alleged in Stern, a German language, weekly newsmagazine, that
AstraZeneca's scientists had doctored their research on the drug's
efficiency:Nexium is also alleged by the authors to be "the
top of the list" of medications which are marketed by
pharmaceutical companies directly to doctors, who receive gifts of
money and/or goods when they prescribe the medication in question.
As a reason for the company's behaviour, it is alleged that the
German public healthcare system spends an additional €99 million
per annum on Nexium as compared to using omeprazole, which however
would be less profitable for the company as its patent protection
has expired.
Malaria drugs
Chloroquine and
Paludrine were marketed with diminutive vague
health warnings inside the boxes. Rather than specifying
"depression", Zeneca used the term "changes in mood". Also "panic
attacks and anxiety" were not mentioned, only "fits and seizures",
in effect hiding information about mental effects, as it was more
widely reported.As a result of these understatements, thousands of
people went on holiday carrying up to 365 days dosage of these
drugs, without any understanding that if they were experiencing
black moods after a couple of months, the medication should be
discontinued. In 1998 the
University of Edinburgh department
of
tropical medicine conducted a
study on over 100
gap-year students that
had been abroad. It found that 31.8% of them that had taken the
anti
prophylactics for over three months
complained of depression compared to 12.4% of students that had
taken a holiday but not taken chloroquine or Paludrine at all.
Neither Zeneca nor the U.K.
National Health Service (NHS)
replied to the findings of the study. The conclusion of the study
was that chloroquine and Paludrine cause a slow and gradual
depression, and that the NHS were widely prescribing double dosages
of the drug without any health warnings.
Corporate sexual harassment
Confronted by
allegations in a 13 May
1996,
Business Week cover story, of widespread
sexual harassment and other abuses, Astra
USA Inc.
suspended three top
executive and launched an internal
probe.
On 26 June, the parent company announced that it had fired Lars
Bildman, Astra USA's
president and
chief executive officer,
without
severance pay. Carl-Gustav
Johansson, an Astra executive
vice-president, says the investigation found
that Bildman had "exhibited inappropriate behavior at company
functions" and had "
abused his
power." He was also accused of
misappropriation of funds, diverting them
for personal expenses such as "lavish trips" and "extensive
renovations for his home." Another
suspended executive, George Roadman, was also fired, while a third,
Edward Aarons,
resigned. A senior executive
in Sweden, Anders Lonner, was asked to resign for failing to report
the
misconduct to superiors, Astra
says.
Astra USA agreed to pay $9.85 million to settle a lawsuit brought
by at least seventy-nine women and one man against the company. The
suit accused Astra's former president and other executives of
pressuring female employees for sex and replacing older workers
with younger, more attractive women. It was the biggest sexual
harassment
settlement ever
obtained by the U.S.
Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
Bildman fraud
On 4 February 1998, Astra USA sued Bildman, its former president
and chief executive officer, seeking $15 million for
defrauding the
company. The sum
included $2.3 million in company funds he allegedly used to fix up
three of his homes, plus money the company paid as the result of
the EEOC investigation.
Astra's lawsuit alleged Bildman sexually
harassed and intimidated employees, used company funds for yachts and prostitutes,
destroyed documents and record, and concocted "tales of conspiracy involving ex-KGB
agent and competitors …
in a last-ditch effort to distract attention from the real
wrongdoer, Bildman himself." Bildman had already
plead guilty in
U.S. District Court for failing to report
more than $1 million in income on his
tax
returns; in addition, several female co-workers filed personal
sexual-harassment lawsuits.
Nobel Prize investigation 2008
In 2008, the
Nobel Prize in
Medicine for cancer-related research on
human papillomavirus (HPV) by
Harald zur Hausen was being looked into by
the Swedish police anticorruption unit. The reason was that
AstraZeneca, which has a stake in two lucrative HPV vaccines and
thus stands to gain financially from the prize, had agreed to
sponsor Nobel Media and Nobel Web. According to Times Online, two
senior figures in the process that chose zur Hausen also had strong
links with AstraZeneca.
Alleged Wikipedia editing
In 2007 a comment on the company's Wikipedia article regarding
claimed
side effects of Seroquel were
deleted by a user of a computer shown to be registered to
AstraZeneca. The company stated that they would investigate the
claim.
Senior management
The senior executive team is comprised of David Brennan, Simon
Lowth, John Patterson, Tony Zook, David Mott, Bruno Angelici, Lynn
Tetrault, Jan Lundberg and David Smith.
Brennan is paid £972,900 for his role as chief executive
officer.
See also
References
- Standard practice is that the name be pronounced as "Astra
Zeneca" rather than "Astrazeneca"
- AstraZeneca - History, merger of Astra AB and Zeneca Group
plc Retrieved 2005-03-20
- AstraZeneca: Merger partners in brief Retrieved
2005-03-20
- AstraZeneca US History
- Press release, 27 July 2005
- Press release, 11 July 2005
- Press release, 27 July 2005
- AstraZenica and Cambridge Antibody Technology
announce major strategic alliance to discover and develop human
antibody therapeutics in inflammatory disorder
- Recommended Cash Offer by AstraZeneca UK Limited
for Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc Offer Declared
Unconditional and Initial Offer Period Extended
- AstraZeneca UK Limited Completes Acquisition of
Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc Compulsory Acquisition
Procedure Completed Subsequent Offer Period Closed
- Press release, 5 July 2006
- Press Release 11 January 2007
- AstraZeneca Successfully Completes Acquisition of
MedImmune
- AstraZeneca Presents its Global Biologics
Organisation, MedImmune, at 2007 Analyst and Investor R&D
Day
- AstraZeneca annual reports
- AstraZeneca UK website, retrieved
2005-03-27
- Seroquel Sustained Release Schizophrenia Data
Presented at ECP Congress in Madrid
- Retrieved from Swedish Public Radio (SR) homepage on
2009-03-27
- Svenska Dagbladet Homepage. Published and retrieved on
2009-03-29.
- AstraZeneca, struggling to develop new medicines,
agrees to buy MedImmune
- Once-Promising Stroke Drug Fails in Trial
- AstraZeneca's big, risky $15 billion bet
- AstraZeneca faces patent battle on No 3 drug as
profits tumble
- AstraZeneca Presents its Global Biologics
Organisation, MedImmune, at 2007 Analyst and Investor R&D
Day
- United States Patent 5,877,192
- Gladwell, Malcolm (25 October 2004). "High Prices: How to think about prescription
drugs". The New Yorker.
- Grill, Markus and Hansen, Hans (2007): "Vorsicht, Pharma!
Wie die Industrie Ärzte manipuliert und Patienten täuscht."
('Caution, Pharma! How the industry manipulates physicians and
deceives patients.') Published in the 16.08.2007 issue of
[Stern (magazine)|Stern]] (Germany; pp. 100-107).
Available as an e-paper here
- Business Week
- Business Week
- Times Online December 19, 2008: AstraZeneca row as
corruption claims engulf Nobel prize
- Times Online 2007-08-16. Retrieved
2009-03-27
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