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EU Demands Pfizer Offload Its Infliximab Biosimilar In Hospira Buy

 
• By Sten Stovall

Pfizer won EU antitrust approval for its plan to buy Hospira after promising to divest certain assets including its own biosimilar version of tumor necrosis factor inhibitor infliximab, to allay competition concerns. Still open are questions about possible buyers and what this means for competitors.

The EU Commission is backing Pfizer Inc.’s planned purchase of US-based generics firm Hospira Inc., provided the big pharma sells off some sterile injectable drugs as well as its own biosimilar version of Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co. Inc.'s blockbuster inhibitor Remicade (infliximab), which is currently under development.

The EU’s executive body in a statement issued Aug. 4 said an investigation into the M&A deal [See Deal] raised competition concerns for infliximab drugs, on the grounds Pfizer would afterwards probably either delay or discontinue development of its biosimilar drug to focus on Hospira's Inflectra, “leading to the net loss of future competition by one of only three differentiated biosimilars in advanced stages of development - Hospira/Celltrion's, Samsung Bioepis Co. Ltd.’s and Pfizer's

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