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London, Dec 10: Glaxosmithkline Plc and Roche Holding AG agreed to co-develop a new osteoporosis drug, a move that could bolster the British company’s thin pipeline and let Roche increase sales in the crucial US market.

GlaxoSmithKline and Roche of Switzerland agreed to jointly develop and market Roche’s ‘Ibandronate’, for osteoporosis, a bone-weakening disease that affects roughly one-third of post-menopausal women over the age of 50. The companies said they plan to seek regulatory approval for Ibandronate in both the US and Europe next year, and co-promote it in all countries except Japan. Ibandronate is in Phase-III, or late-stage, trials.

The move is part of GlaxoSmithKline’s strategy to plug gaps in its late-stage drug development, which has suffered because of failed drugs, regulatory rejections and the forced sale of some medicines to get the merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham past antitrust regulators. Although the company has a huge in-house research and development operation, it increasingly needs to tap promising drugs produced by other companies. In recent months, the company has signed several such in-licensing deals, including a recent agreement to co-market Bayer AG’s impotence drug, Vardenafil. (Reuters)