The US firm Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has bolstered its cancer pipeline with the addition of a new experimental candidate, PCI-32765. The concerns over the contract manufacturer of Doxil are expected to affect availability of the drug in the US market.

Johnson & Johnson's deal with Pharmacyclics involves just one cancer candidate drug, but with potential for several indications reports his Global Insight, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and multiple myeloma. The agreement value for Pharmacyclics is close to US $1 billion.
 
The licensing deal will enhance J&J's oncology therapy pipeline and the commercial potential of the drug comments IHS Global Insight, which could be viewed as a blockbuster.

The Doxil supplier concerns will affect availability and revenues from the drug for J&J. The licensing deal with Pharmacyclics will boost J&J's medium-term revenues from the oncology segment says IHS Global Insight.

In terms of the contract supplier woes, J&J can expect that the continued problems faced by Ben Venue will affect the availability of Doxil in the US market. The drug is already on the shortage list and revenues from the drug are expected to decline further. In the third quarter of 2011, Doxil reported an 87 per cent year-on-year drop in revenues to US $10 million.

The deal provides J&J with access to a promising cancer candidate that would also enhance its own research pipeline in the oncology therapy area notes IHS Global Insight. The potential deal value of US$1 billion for Pharmacyclics reflects the commercial potency of the drug and is understood to be one of the key reasons behind the agreement. It is worth noting that in August, Pharmacyclics signed a five-year research and development co-operation deal with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) on the development of PCI-32765 for the treatment of haematologic malignancies. Under that agreement, the NCI's Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis plans to sponsor Phase I and Phase II trials of PCI-32765 in various haematologic malignancies, including NHL and multiple myeloma.