Glaxo teams up with Pfizer on HIV

Call it the mini-megamerger. Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline are joining their HIV forces in a new joint venture that will boast a 19 percent share of the market for those treatments. The J.V. will be split 85-15 Glaxo-Pfizer because Glaxo has many more marketed HIV products. 

For now, at least. Glaxo's products have been around for a long time, and it doesn't have a big lot of up-and-coming HIV candidates. Which is at least one reason why it's hooking up with Pfizer, which doesn't have many HIV meds for sale now, but does have a cadre of prospects coming up through its pipeline. Meanwhile, Pfizer may have those prospects, but it lacks Glaxo's broad, global reach in the HIV market.

"By combining Pfizer's and GlaxoSmithKline's complementary strengths and capabilities, we are creating a new global leader in HIV," Pfizer chief Jeff Kindler said in a statement. "With the strength of the companies' current HIV products, as well as the complementary fit of Pfizer's HIV pipeline and GSK's global distribution capabilities, the new company is well positioned to bring new and improved medicines to patients with more speed and efficiency."

The new company will hit the ground with 11 marketed products, including top-selling Combivir (which goes off patent in 2012) and the relatively new Selzentry/Celsentri. The combined portfolio is expected to generate about $2.4 billion in sales, which can in turn be plowed into its pipeline of about a half-dozen candidates. Topping the new company will be Glaxo SVP Dominique Limet.

- read the release [1]
- check out the story [2] from Bloomberg

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