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By Ben Hirschler
LONDON, July 24 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca is dippingits toe in the biosimilars market, as a way to make futurecancer drug cocktails more affordable, by linking with aJapanese group to develop a copy of Roche's blockbustermedicine Avastin.
Its new 50/50 joint venture with Fujifilm Kyowa KirinBiologics (FKB) will work on a copycat version of Avastin, whichis currently used in a range of solid tumours and also haspotential to be given alongside new immunotherapy treatments.
FKB -- itself a tie-up between Fujifilm and KyowaHakko Kirin -- commenced a Phase I clinical trial ofits copy of Avastin, called FKB238, in Europe last November.
Under the terms of the agreement, FKB will transfer therights to FKB238 to the new joint venture and will receive alump-sum payment of $45 million in return.
An AstraZeneca spokeswoman said the move did not reflect ashift away from the British company's focus on innovativeproducts but rather was a way to develop a product that could beused in affordable drug cocktails.
"This supports our combination-focused strategy in oncologyto help explore potential new treatment options, whilst keepingthe cost of new therapies low enough to enable access forpatients and payers," she said.
Immunotherapy drugs, which harness the immune system tofight tumours, represent a significant advance in cancertreatment but many experts believe their greatest promise liesin combining them with drugs that work in different ways.
Roche, the world's biggest maker of cancer drugs, is alreadyexploring such combinations using Avastin.
AstraZeneca could now do something similar by combiningFKB238 with its leading experimental immunotherapy drug MEDI3476and others in the pipeline.
The arrival of so-called biosimilars represents a threat tocompanies such as Roche that make their money by selling complexbiotech medicines, although the rollout of these products willtake time.
Roche said on Thursday it expected the first biosimilarcopies of its cancer medicines Rituxan and Herceptin to hit themarket in late 2017, with competition to Avastin coming later,since it has longer patent protection.
Because biotech drugs are made from living cells it isimpossible to manufacture exact copies, as happens with simplechemical medicines, so regulators have come up with the notionof approving products that are similar enough to do the job. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Mark Potter)
