Bayer Drug Approvals and Growth in Asia Pacific

By Allison Proffitt  

March 9, 2012 | SINGAPORE--In the 1960s, when a Bollywood director needed to kill off a character it was easy. “What happened to so-and-so?” other characters would ask. “He died of pneumonia.”  It was an efficient and believable execution.  

Today, thanks to new medicines and developments in health care, it’s not quite as straightforward, said Alok Kanti, regional head of Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals for Asia Pacific, at a briefing. Bayer’s focus in Asia Pacific has continued to grow in the last year, with the company experiencing 9.4% growth across Asia in 2011. Singapore, Vietnam, and Pakistan each enjoyed more than 26% growth in 2011, while markets in Malaysia and Indonesia grew by 14% and 13% respectively. The numbers are a bit down from last year’s growth reports in these countries, but in line with IMS Health’s predictions for 2011 (see, “Bayer Reports Asia Pacific Growth”).   

India also experienced 26% growth in the general medicines division of the year-old Bayer Zydus Cadila. In January 2011, Bayer entered a joint venture with Indian company Zydus Cadila, and Kanti said he believes this will be a strong model in the future. India is the only market in Asia Pacific in which Bayer has taken this tact, because the Indian market can be “particularly difficult,” Kanti said. The 50-50 partnership has been ongoing for over a year and Bayer is seeing increasing sales in the country as a result.   

The growth in the region comes as a result of several years of focused effort. With R&D headquarters in Beijing and offices in Singapore as well, Bayer is not just committed to sales growth in the region, but research growth as well.   

In Asia Pacific, as in other parts of the world, communicable diseases are decreasing in frequency, while chronic disease incidence increases, said Richard Nieman, head of global medical affairs Asia. Bayer internationally is focusing its research on areas of unmet need including cardiology, hematology, oncology, and gynecology. Nieman reported a “strong” pipeline of over 40 projects including both new entities and lifecycle management, or additional indications for approved drugs. Approximately half of those projects are in Phase III and the pipeline is “balanced” across disease areas, he said.   

In Asia Pacific, ophthalmology additionally remains an area of focus. VEGF-Trap Eye, a drug developed for several eye diseases, was approved in Australia last week under the name EYLEA. In addition to approval for wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD), EYLEA is currently in Phase III trials for additional indications including myopic choroidal neovascularization (myopic CNV), a disease likely to have high incidence in Asian populations, which already have high rates of myopia.   

The company is also committed to rolling out new drugs in Asian markets simultaneously with European and U.S. launches when possible, rather than introducing drugs in Western markets first. 16% of patients recruited into Bayer’s clinical trials globally come from Asia Pacific and China, said Nieman, a four-fold increase compared to five years ago. The company plans to systematically include Asian patients earlier in drug development to ensure earlier access to products.