Pharma News

Amgen’s aim for a ‘moonshot’ in cardiovascular disease

As a cardiovascular disease specialist, scientist and industry executive Amgen’s Dr. Narimon Honarpour has one question: “Where is the moonshot for addressing cardiovascular disease — the top killer globally?”

Dr. Narimon Honarpour, VP, global development, general medicine, Amgen

Permission granted by Amgen

 

“The public health threat for cardiovascular disease is among the greatest, if not the greatest threat for society today,” said Honarpour, vice president of global development for Amgen’s general medicine therapeutic area. “There are moonshots for really important diseases, like cancer. More recently there was a moonshot described for eradicating Hepatitis C. I think we need one for cardiovascular disease. The prevalence of heart disease is getting worse. This cannot be acceptable for society.”

Honarpour joined Amgen a dozen years ago as the cholesterol reducer Repatha was entering the clinic.

“I was the third person to join the company to help support what was still an investigative therapy,” he said. “There was a ton of excitement, a lot of unknown, a lot of unbroken ground. The journey has been really wonderful in the interceding years.”

Although Repatha’s patent future hangs in the balance while the Supreme Court weighs the merits of both companies’ arguments surrounding the “PCSK9 monoclonal antibody class of cholesterol-lowering biologics,” Amgen continues to expand the blockbuster’s potential. Late last month, the company released new data showing “earlier, longer use of Repatha reduces total cardiovascular events” and when combined with the siRNA olpasiran, Repatha reduces “lipoprotein(a) by more than 90%.”

“We want to continue to lead the way in evidence generation,” Honarpour said. “We want to look at the impact of Repatha in different patient populations. In our new and ongoing studies, we want to look at patients who are at very high CV risk or high CV risk, but have not yet had heart attacks and strokes, and so on.”


“Understanding which medicine can treat patients who are obese and have heart disease is a major riddle that we are trying to solve.”

Dr. Narimon Honarpour

VP, global development, general medicine, Amgen


As part of his remit in general medicine, Honarpour also has oversight of assets related to bone health, osteoporosis, neuroscience and renal disease.

“The one thing that is really special about general medicine, is that these are all highly prevalent conditions with very high unmet medical needs,” he said. “Let’s consider just three conditions that we focus on in general medicine. Ischemic heart disease affects 240 million people worldwide. In the U.S., the direct medical costs are $220 billion annually. Obesity affects 600 million people worldwide. Direct medical costs in the United States each year, $170 billion. Osteoporosis impacts 200 million women worldwide (with) $50 billion annual direct medical cost in the U.S. alone. Just those three diseases in general medicine, we are looking at about a billion people affected worldwide. And the incidence and prevalence of these diseases are getting worse. This makes general medicine perhaps the most impactful area for research and development for medical practice and public health.”

Here, Honarpour discusses the role general medicine plays in global public health, how he evaluates pipeline candidates and the intersectionality of therapeutic areas.

This interview has been edited for brevity and style. 

PHARMAVOICE: How do you view the role of general medicine in the context of overall healthcare?

DR. NARIMON HONARPOUR: When we talk about what is general medicine, my reflex is general medicine is public health.

I think the two most important things I do for Amgen, and for general medicine, is one to keep the pipeline moving with quality assets that we believe can make a difference for patients. If I don’t do that, I’m not doing my job. The other thing that I have to do is create an environment that enables the teams I work with to succeed. Those are the two behaviors I try to hold myself accountable to every day.

How do you decide which projects to assign resources to? Do you have a Magic 8 Ball?

I wish we had that. My focus is on strategy, execution and resourcing of the programs that we pull through. This is very hard for any pharma company, particularly when working with breakthrough science, to try to understand how it will all play out. It’s important to acknowledge that what you are asking has a complex answer.

There are a number of factors that have to be considered in terms of what to prioritize and where to assign resources. First and foremost, there has to be collaboration. These decisions cannot be made in isolation. With our partners internally at Amgen — we have external partners too that we work with in the academic community — we have to evaluate a variety of options to make sure they’re visible. We have to seek out and account for a diversity of perspectives. At the end of the day, this has to be informed by the best information available. We do not just operate on hunches; working on hunches can be very difficult and fraught in this industry.

Source link
#Amgens #aim #moonshot #cardiovascular #disease

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *