N.J.-based research powering global drug development

Joseph Pieroni, president and chief executive of the Parsippany-based U.S. operations of Daiichi Sankyo Inc., expects to know “in a couple of months” if his company’s drug, Efient, could indeed become the blockbuster it promises to be. Efient will target the market now served by Plavix, from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis, that has worldwide sales of $8.634 billion, according to IMS Health, of Norwalk, Conn.; that makes Plavix the second-most valuable drug after Pfizer’s cholesterol drug Lipitor.

Efient, an anticoagulant, and a half-dozen cancer drugs form the guts of the research pipeline upon which Daiichi Sankyo’s Tokyo-based parents are banking. Much less known is the fact that half the research and development spending ($1.7 billion worldwide in 2008) on those drugs are controlled out of the company’s 100,000-square-foot clinical research center in Edison, said John C. Alexander, the company’s global head of R&D.

Alexander, who was instrumental in setting up the Edison center a decade ago, said half the R&D dollars are managed from there. The facility has about 300 researchers, while the company’s Parsippany offices have another 600 employees; combined with its field staff, Daiichi employs 2,000 in the state. The company’s North American operations had $1.78 billion in revenue last year.

“Could you do all that in Pennsylvania, New York or Boston?” asked Pieroni, of the company’s New Jersey presence. “You could do it anywhere else, but the answer [in New Jersey] is human capital.”

Pieroni said while he could tap research talent in California and Massachusetts, he would find in New Jersey “the type of person we are looking for” — a worker skilled in commercial functions specific to the pharmaceutical industry, clinical research and regulatory affairs. “That intellectual capital exists here,” he said, offering the example of Glenn Gormley, recently hired as president of pharmaceuticals development. Previously, Gormley had senior roles with Merck, AstraZeneca and Novartis.

New Jersey also offers the ideal location for Daiichi Sankyo’s business model, which “incorporates outsourcing as a strategic component,” Gormley said. The company believes in leveraging “a small core” of people with outsourced partners, he said.