Sydney-based Pharmaxis (ASX:PXS) has welcomed its inclusion in a new report that has ranked the company among the top 100 most innovative pharmaceutical companies in the APAC region.
The report prepared by Cortellis, 'Pharmaceutical innovation in the APAC region', studied a cohort of 929 companies (including multi‐nationals) across 14 countries that have or are developing innovative pharmaceutical products.
Of the 929 companies, 130 are headquartered in Australia, with almost 500 drugs currently in development.
Japanese companies dominated the list of most innovative large companies - occupying nine of the top ten positions. Australian company CSL was the only non-Japanese company in the top 10 - ranking sixth. It was the only local company to make the top 40 list of large companies with the report saying its score on innovation pushed it into the top ten.
Pharmaxis was one of 14 Australian companies to make the list of 100 most innovative in the small to medium-sized enterprises category.
It was ranked 38. Other Australian companies in the top 100 medium-sized list of innovators were Telix Pharmaceuticals (22), Mesoblast and EnGenelC (42), Benitec Biopharma (48), Paranta Biosciences (57), Immutep (67), Patrys and Cynata Therapeutics (75), Imugene (80), Bionomics (85), Vaxine and Phylogica (89), and Kazia Therapeutics (96).
The list was dominated by companies from Japan, China and Korea.
“I’m delighted but not surprised that Pharmaxis has been recognised in this report, the first of its kind," said Pharmaxis CEO Gary Phillips.
"We have clearly met key indicators such as being able to demonstrate a strong pipeline and translate our R&D into actual drug candidates. Early-stage partnering was also a measure studied for the report and Pharmaxis has made this a key business objective.”
In 2015, Pharmaxis sold its anti‐inflammatory drug candidate to Boehringer Ingelheim in a deal structured to deliver potential value in excess of $A750 million. The company's pipeline is focused on anti‐fibrotic agents to treat a variety of diseases through inhibiting the LOX and LOXL2 enzymes.