Bristol-Myers Squibb refocuses R&D strategy

US drug major Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) says it is “evolving its strategic focus in R&D to ensure continued leadership in delivering innovative medicines for patients with serious disease,” dropping new research in the areas of diabetes, hepatitis C and neuroscience.

The company will focus investment on priority areas such as immuno-oncology, delivering its late-stage pipeline across all its therapeutic areas and focusing discovery to explore disease areas of highest unmet medical need where the company can bring the greatest value. The evolved strategic focus in R&D will support and advance B-MS’ overall BioPharma strategy, which remains unchanged, the company noted.

“We are focusing our R&D organization on delivering the opportunities where the value is greatest to patients,” said Francis Cuss, executive vice president and chief scientific officer, at B-MS, adding: “We have decided to shift R&D toward a more specialty BioPharma model that focuses on the areas of significant unmet medical need, driving near-term growth through our current late-stage portfolio and on ensuring the long-term growth of the company by evolving the disease areas and drug platforms on which we concentrate our research efforts.”