Two of the biggest pharmaceutical firms this week took the unusual move of pooling their HIV treatments. The new group has been named Viiv Healthcare and was formed by Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline.
Viiv will take over GSK’s collection of HIV medicines, which are becoming slightly outdated (one otf their biggest sellers Combivir is due to lose its patent in 3 years) and Pzifer’s new and largely untested drugs. The chief executive of Viiv Dominique Limet described the newer medications as the ‘key driver’ for growth.
At the moment, Viiv has 11 marketed medicines and 7 different molecules.The large part of the start-up money, £250 million in total, has been contributed by GSK and they will be the major shareholders, with 85% of the equity However this equity split could change depending on which company’s research and products deliver the most profit. The drugs in Pzifer’s portfolio are likely to be profitable if they go successfully through clinical trials.
Dr Limet said that he has not ruled out making a public offering of the company in the future, but this will depend on the shareholders. He added that as the structure of the company is unique in the industry due to the size of the two companies involved, the priority at the moment was making the structure work.
He concluded that access and affordability of HIV drugs was a priority and said that the “challenging landscape” of HIV treatment made new research a priority.