MedImmune announces strong future plans

GAITHERSBURG, Md. Biotechnology company MedImmune has said that it expects to have at least three new drug candidates in trials by 2010 and to have an average of six new drug applications for submission per year, according to the baltimoresun.com.

This new outlook represents an acceleration of earlier plans by the company. The company was acquired earlier this year by AstraZeneca to help bolster its product pipeline.

“We have brought AstraZeneca’s two pre-existing biologics locations and 300 more people under the MedImmune umbrella to address unmet therapeutic needs within the central nervous, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular systems, in addition to our historical focus on the areas of infectious disease, inflammatory disease and cancer,” said MedImmune chief executive David Mott. “As a result, our biologics pipeline now has more than doubled in size to contain 100 research projects and more than a dozen clinical product candidates.”

MedImmune plans on filing an application for FluMist, its nasal spray influenza vaccine with the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products in 2008.