New trend: Drugs that are difficult to produce – but incredibly profitable – New Technology

       

Biological drugs are proteins that are grown in living cells or bacteria. They have proven to be very effective against diseases such as rheumatism, various cancers and blood diseases. With fewer side effects than traditional drugs produced chemically, they have become hugely successful and profitable.

Seven of the eight medicines which last year raked in the most money in the world is biological. The peak is Humira, a drug for rheumatoid arthritis from Abbvie, which sold for SEK 110 billion. All eight sells for more than 50 billion per year. None of them come from Astra Zeneca.

The high income has two causes: the efficacy and that they are expensive and complicated to produce.

The active substances, often antibodies, produced by genetically modified mammalian or bacterial cells. To produce, extract and purify them is complicated.

– Everything is done in extremely controlled environments, and because it is about injection products, they must be completed in a cleanroom that is 100 000 times cleaner than an operating room, said Magnus Gustafsson on Cobra Biologics in Södertälje.

Cobra Biologics is one of the few Swedish manufacturer of biopharmaceuticals. At the company’s plants in Sweden and the UK produced biologics for clinical trials. Customers are between 50 and 60 pharmaceutical companies worldwide

Everything that is produced is sent to a facility in Matfors outside Sundsvall to either freeze-dried or filled in syringes and vials. All sources of pollution must be excluded because the drugs most often injected directly into the blood. It is a must because the proteins are broken down in the gastrointestinal tract.

The plant in Södertälje belonged to the former Astra Zeneca. In the early 2000s constituted the company’s burgeoning investment in biologics, but in 2009 was spun Cobra Biologics off. The company has since grown to 240 people.

AstraZeneca’s goal now is to come into the big players in biologics. These include Roche, Amgen and Pfizer. And to break into the list of the world’s most profitable drugs. The investment of one billion facility in Södertälje is a step along the way.

– It feels great to a large caps such as Astra Zeneca invests in biological production facilities in Sweden and the region, says Magnus Gustafsson.

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