Roche

Years ago, I met the two founders of the biotech industry. They began Genentech. One was a scientist. The other was a businessman. All of their children attended the school where I got sick. Sadly, the businessman died of cancer and another father at the school became the new CEO. He led them through many successful years until the Swiss pharmaceutical company, Roche, bought Genentech.

When I got some extra money, I bought some Genentech stock just because I knew the founders. It grew, and then I had to turn in the Genentech stock when Roche bought it. I took that money and put it all into Roche stock.

It is with that background that I was thrilled to learn yesterday that the little local company of InterMune had just signed an agreement to be purchased by Roche for a mere $8.3 billion. InterMune is the company who developed Pirfenidone or Esbriet as it is going to be labeled (who thinks up the names of new drugs??). They are banking on the estimated 70,000 to 200,000 Americans who have idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. No other treatment is currently available for patients with IPF or other any other fibrotic lung diseases other than lung transplants. Pirfenidone is expected to be approved for use in the US in November 2014. 

The Germany company of Boehringer Ingelheim also hopes to have their drug approved called nintedanib. Don’t even try to pronounce it. You will trip on your tongue. That is the special drug I have been watching go through all the trials. Both pirfenidone and nintedanib have shown to slow the decline of lung function in IPF patients. Nintdanib is not a new drug but will be now available to people with IPF after the trials proved it helped slow the decline of lung fibrosis.

Both are expected to hit the market around the same time. All good news for people struggling with IPF. Two choices.