Consort, West Pharma Exubera alliance
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Consort Medical and West Pharmaceutical Services have ended their respective manufacturing and supply deals with Nektar Therapeutics for the Exubera insulin inhaler. Consort is set to receive £11m ($21.6m) from Nektar, while West Pharma did not disclose the amount that it would receive. San Carlos, California-based Nektar is required to pay Consort for reimbursement of costs and expenses under the terms of the original agreement, while West Pharma said that it would be reimbursed for facility, inventory, raw materials and personnel costs. Nektar holds the intellectual property to Exubera and the original agreement saw Consort (Milton Keynes, UK) and West Pharma (Lionville, Pennsylvania) manufacture the device. Manufacturing of the technology was ceased last October by Pfizer (who produced the insulin used in the devices) due to poor sales of the device. Analysts predicted last November that it would be Nektar, rather than Consort, West Pharma or Pfizer that would bear the brunt of the financial fallout from the ailing sales (see Clinica No 1279, p 12).