Pfizer completes inhaler company acquisition
delivery company Meridica in a move that it says will bolster its
activities in allergy and respiratory medicine.
Pfizer paid $125 million (€101m) for the remaining 90 per cent of Meridica, which specialises in the development of inhalers and intranasal delivery devices. The company's lead technology is its Xcelovair dry powder inhaler (DPI), which has been developed for use in the treatment of asthma and other respiratory diseases.
Pfizer purchased a 10 per cent interest in Meridica in October 2003 at the time that it licensed the rights to the DPI.
Earlier this year, Meridica started the first clinical trial data with the device, in order to compare the safety and efficacy of the beta agonist formoterol delivered via the Xcelovair or a current DPI.
The UK company's other technologies include Xcelodose, an automated and programmable tool for the precise metering of drugs into capsules and other solid dosage form containers; Xcelovent, a device that provides breath-actuated delivery of drugs from pressurised metered dose inhalers; and Xcelonase, a nasal drug delivery system that promises to improve the efficiency of delivery compared to current devices, according to Meridica.
The Xcelodose can handle drug compounds without bulking agent or excipient and can precisely fills at a rate of several hundred capsules, with doses from as low as 100ug to 100mg.
Pfizer has bought Meridica from PA Consulting Group, which established the UK company in 2001.
The DPI sector has seen a flurry of development activity in the last few years, with a number of companies designing and developing new devices. The reason? Current inhalers are simply not that effective at delivering medication, often because they require too much coordination on behalf of patients.
Despite this, DPIs are a $4 billion market today, helped by the fact that they do not use ozone-depleting chemicals as propellants. However, they tend to be expensive, so considerable effort has been spent by a number of companies in refining the technology to improve delivery and cut costs.
The UK is something of a hotbed for novel inhaler technologies. Other UK companies active in this space include:
Vectura, which recently started development of its low-cost Gyrohaler DPI; SkyePharma, which develops its own Skyehaler DPI and recently licensed a new device - the Aspirair - from Vectura; ML Laboratories, which has licensed its C200 device designed to make it easier to dliver two actives at the same time; Bespak, whose inhaler technology underlies Pfizer and Aventis inhaled insulin product Exubera; and Profile Therapeutics, which specialises in handheld nebulisers.
