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Speedel Group: Strings Attached? No Problem

 
• By Chris Morrison

Speedel Group sets itself apart from many in-licensing companies by offering partners a call-back option on development projects. This, plus its tight focus on renin inhibition and Big Pharma savvy management have allowed the group to build a pipeline. Critics say the model restricts Speedel's upside. But the success of its first project, Novartis' Phase III SPP100, and one of Europe's largest private financings of 2003 suggest the group has a strong chance of proving them wrong.

In 1998, one of Novartis AG 's top late-stage development prospects, the first-in-class Phase III renin inhibitor aliskiren, was an early-stage project that didn't quite make the grade. Novartis didn't want to commit significant resources to develop the anti-hypertensive; renin inhibitors, although scientifically interesting, had failed to live up to their early promise—indeed more than 30 years after the blood pressure regulating renin-angiotensin system (RAS) was first pharmacologically tweaked by inhibiting angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), no renin inhibitors have made it to the market. (See Sidebar: The Renin-Angiotensin System.)

But neither did the Big Pharma, fresh from its formation after the March 1996 merger of Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy

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