Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Merrimack's Mulroy on Success of Pancreatic Drug Onivyde(Audio)

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Merrimack's Mulroy on Success of Pancreatic Drug Onivyde(Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: going to take stock off cancer and estimated one point
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  Speaker 1: six million cases new cases of cancer will be diagnosed
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  Speaker 1: in the United States this year. We're gonna talk about
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  Speaker 1: battling cancer on many fronts. Bob mulroy, CEO of Merrimack
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  Speaker 1: Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as we continue our special live
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  Speaker 1: Charlie from the Bloomberg Newsroom. I'm Rami Incentio. Speaking today
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  Speaker 1: during a roundtable discussion on the crisis in the Middle East,
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  Speaker 1: Taking Stock, broadcasting live from the Boston Convention Exhibition Center
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  Speaker 1: before tonight's Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting. Now
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  Speaker 1: for some sober ring news. The United States will spend
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  Speaker 1: about a hundred and twenty five billion dollars this year
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  Speaker 1: on cancer care. One point six to maybe one point
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  Speaker 1: seven million new cases of cancer will be reported this year.
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  Speaker 1: Cancer is a big deal for everyone. Here to help
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  Speaker 1: us understand the battle against cancer is Bob mulroy. He
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  Speaker 1: is the chief executive of Merrimack of Pharmaceuticals. They're based
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  Speaker 1: in Cambridge, mass Sta. Mulroy, thank you very much for
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  Speaker 1: joining us today. Well, it's great to be here. Tell
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  Speaker 1: people who have not been paying attention to Merrimack and
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  Speaker 1: your oncology and cancer work about the company and how
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  Speaker 1: you're building almost a system of building blocks to fight cancer.
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  Speaker 1: So Merrimack is a company that came out of m
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  Speaker 1: I T in Harvard, and we use all the engineering
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  Speaker 1: technologies that m I f T has developed over the
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  Speaker 1: years to look at really complex as the US and
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  Speaker 1: one of the things we see in cancer, especially late
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  Speaker 1: States cancer, these cancers aren't driven by any one component anymore.
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  Speaker 1: They're multidimensional, and so we use all of the systems
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  Speaker 1: dynamics technology to come out of m I T try
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  Speaker 1: and understand cancer as a multidimensional problem and then creates
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  Speaker 1: solutions that address all of those dimensions. So that's merrimas core.
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  Speaker 1: What we've got out of it now is fifteen different
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  Speaker 1: drug programs are first is now approved and we have
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  Speaker 1: that really rare thing in biotech is that we now
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  Speaker 1: have two more drugs lined up in registration studies reporting
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  Speaker 1: next year in the following year. So we're now at
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  Speaker 1: a point of really robust productivity from the research has
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  Speaker 1: created a really wonderful opportunity to address some serious cancers.
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  Speaker 1: For many people have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, particularly
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  Speaker 1: it's metastasized. It's it's all, but it's you know, the
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  Speaker 1: doctors will tell you very little odds of survival. Right
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  Speaker 1: that is one of your big drugs right now, you've
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  Speaker 1: been making progress with that, tell us about that and
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  Speaker 1: and how what kind of success if you're having I
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  Speaker 1: hope you have in the future. So uh an Avide
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  Speaker 1: is our first drug and that was approved last year
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  Speaker 1: by the U s f d A, and it's in
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  Speaker 1: a registration program all around the globe now to hopefully
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  Speaker 1: be approved to be used worldwide. And an Avide was
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  Speaker 1: designed to treat pancreatic cancer where our systems technologies had suggested.
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  Speaker 1: The big problem with pancreatic cancer and the reason why
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  Speaker 1: we've had so few drugs approved and had very low,
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  Speaker 1: low and slow progress treating the disease was that the
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  Speaker 1: tumors have almost a wall around them and it's hard
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  Speaker 1: to get drug inside that wall. So we created a
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  Speaker 1: drug that actually uses some immune cells as a as
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  Speaker 1: a taxi to traffick the drug in through that wall,
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  Speaker 1: get inside the tumor and have an effect. And what
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  Speaker 1: we saw was a significant im prease in overall survival
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  Speaker 1: and patients who haven't had a new therapy UH in
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  Speaker 1: over thirty years. Just the third new drug approved and
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  Speaker 1: pancreatic cancer, and now we have the opportunity to make
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  Speaker 1: it available to patients all across the United States and
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  Speaker 1: it's it's a really exciting time for that. Let's talk
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  Speaker 1: a little business for just a moment, because you've made
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  Speaker 1: a transition in the company, as you alluded to, from
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  Speaker 1: a biotech research company to a commercial company. Now, maybe
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  Speaker 1: investors who bought in at the very beginning they wanted
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  Speaker 1: a biotech research company, how do you make that transition
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  Speaker 1: on the shareholder base, but also how have you changed
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  Speaker 1: your view of whether that transition really was what you
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  Speaker 1: wanted or what you are happy to get out of
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  Speaker 1: it now. So we're we're thrilled to be commercial. Only
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  Speaker 1: only three percent of all biotechs that start actually get
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  Speaker 1: a drug approved. It's a very hard thing to do,
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  Speaker 1: and so to be there is a great thing. But
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  Speaker 1: I think what we're trying to do with a company,
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  Speaker 1: and we've tried to communicate to shareholders is the point
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  Speaker 1: you made at the outset is they're treating these Late
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  Speaker 1: States cancers. You need a series of building blocks. You
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  Speaker 1: need this whole series of components, and Onavai gives us
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  Speaker 1: one piece to that, and the drugs that we're developing
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  Speaker 1: our other components where we hope to not just increase
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  Speaker 1: overall survival by but by multiple fold, actually get to
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  Speaker 1: that magical cure words someday by addressing these multiple components
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  Speaker 1: of these tumors. And so really that's the business model
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  Speaker 1: is to build these multi components, be able to use
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  Speaker 1: them in the right combinations and patients to get really
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  Speaker 1: significant survival outcomes, you know, not not not small increases.
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  Speaker 1: And of course for for biotech companies in the industry
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  Speaker 1: US bad you have to make money, right, so if
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  Speaker 1: you get this big smash out of a drug, you
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  Speaker 1: save lives, that's the most important thing, and you can
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  Speaker 1: make money. You've got a drug in the works targeting
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  Speaker 1: breast cancer, breast cancers that have not respond to their treatments,
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  Speaker 1: also treatment for non small cell lung cancer, which is
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  Speaker 1: a real aggressive one as well. Give me one example
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  Speaker 1: of what kind of investment you have to put into it,
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  Speaker 1: But then what kind of what kind of reward, what
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  Speaker 1: kind of return you can get on these things? So
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  Speaker 1: you know, Historically, uh, you know, if you look at
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  Speaker 1: the industry as a whole, it takes up three to
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  Speaker 1: five billion dollars to get one drug approved, depending on
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you know what source you want to look at. So
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  Speaker 1: the enormous amounts of money. One of the reasons Merrimack
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  Speaker 1: was founded because using all this computing technology and engineering
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  Speaker 1: analysis and m I t UM, we've reduced that by
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  Speaker 1: orders of magnitude, and that um the key is if
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  Speaker 1: you can increase the probability of success. Historically, only seven
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  Speaker 1: of a hundred drugs that go into cancer chemical trials
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  Speaker 1: get approved, and that's really poor odds and it speaks
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  Speaker 1: to the complexity of the disease. If you could improve
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  Speaker 1: that success rate by just ten percent, you cut the
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  Speaker 1: cost of new medicines in half. So globally we're talking
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  Speaker 1: about a major, major health problem with all concerned about
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  Speaker 1: the price of drugs. The route through it we see
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  Speaker 1: is really through innovation in in better success rates and
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  Speaker 1: more precise target of medicines that increase that success rate,
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  Speaker 1: lower the cost of producing the drugs, and lower the
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  Speaker 1: cost of healthcare for all of us. Well more, I
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  Speaker 1: thank you so very much for joining us today. He's
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  Speaker 1: the CEO of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals based in Cambridge, mass As
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: we continue our live broadcast at the Boston Convention and
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  Speaker 1: Exists Exhibition Center, This is Bloomberg Radio. We're taking Stock
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