Bayer has been putting the spotlight on its pharma pipeline which includes development of new cardiology and cancer drugs.

Speaking at the company’s innovation press forum in Leverkusen earlier this week, chief executive Marijn Dekkers reiterated his view that five current products - the anticoagulant Xarelto (rivaroxaban), the eye drug Eylea (aflibercept) and the new cancer treatments Xofigo (radium 223) and Stivarga (regorafenib), plus the pulmonary hypertension therapy Adempas (riociguat) - have an annual peak sales potential of at least 7.5 billion euros. However, he mainly talked about what is next, jokingly stating that some analysts who have “the patience of a one-day fly, want to know already.

The pharma pipeline contains 57 projects - 20 in Phase I, 19 in Phase II and 18 in Phase III. Among these are five new molecules which should be ready to go into late-stage trials by 2015; they are finerenone and vericiguat, both for chronic heart failure, molidustat for renal anaemia, copanlisib for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and vilaprisan for uterine fibroids.

Haemophilia drug filed in EU

Meantime, Bayer has filed BAY 81-8973 in Europe, a recombinant Factor VIII (rFVIII) compound for the treatment of haemophilia A and its follow-up to Kogenate.

The submission is based on data from the LEOPOLD trials which show that BAY 81-8973 provides bleeding control in people with severe haemophilia A when infused either twice per week or three times per week with standard dosages. Johannes Oldenburg of the University of Bonn noted that “flexible dosing gives patients and their doctors greater choice in matching the right treatment regimen to each person’s therapeutic requirements”.

Another long-acting rFVIII (BAY 94-9027) is in Phase III and Bayer recently announced plans to spend more than 500 million euros on expanding haemophilia drug production at Wuppertal and Leverkusen.