Bentley Pharmaceuticals, based in New Hampshire, has signed a development and commercialization deal with Biocon, based in India. The agreement is focused on Bentley's intranasal insulin spray. Interesting? You bet.
1. Bentley is developing an interesting alternative to inhaled insulin, which, while approved recently, has some folks concerned over potential lung side effects. It's entirely possible that the intranasal formulation Bentley has will cause some irritation, but I'd take that over the potential decrease in lung function any day. Although I still think achieving consistent bioavailability (the amount of insulin which reaches the circulation) is going to be problematic. Their formulation does have much higher bioavailability than inhaled, which will manifest itself as a smaller device (a good marketing angle) and less insulin per dose (lower COGS).
2. Bentley's approach of pursuing ex-US development and commercialization opportunities is interesting. This agreement with India's Biocon follows a similar agreement with South Korean Dong Sung Pharma. I find it interesting that companies like Bentley (and Generex as well) are focused on commercialization on a global scale. It used to be that a small company had to license their technology to a big pharma company in order to tap into the huge US market and the infrastructure a partner would provide. Now, anyone can tap into global markets from the beginning. I think this has an important implication for start ups, namely, the need to think globally from day one.
3. One key reason why Bentley signed the deal is because Biocon has significant capabilities to produce insulin. While Biocon is an example of a potential "biogeneric" in insulin, it also shows how the capability can be married to drug delivery to create additional opportunities. I would not be surprised if we started to see more relationships between biogeneric companies ex-US (India, China, Eastern Europe) and drug delivery companies looking for low-cost protein drugs for their delivery systems.
Very interesting...I'll have to think and blog some more on this point.
Link: Spray insulin war heats up.
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