Schering sees "bulging" drug pipeline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Schering-Plough Corp SGP.N Chief Executive Fred Hassan said on Tuesday he expects the company's purchase of Organon Biosciences to be completed by year-end and that the deal would leave the drugmaker with a "bulging" roster of important experimental products.

Even as Schering-Plough prepares to complete the $14.4 billion deal, Hassan said he remains interested in smaller transactions that would enhance the company's existing oncology and consumer health care businesses.

"We still have very clear priorities in oncology and consumer health care where we need more products to keep us going," said Hassan, whose company sells brain cancer treatment Temodar and consumer brands that include over-the-counter forms of its Claritin antihistamine.

In the meantime, Hassan said Schering-Plough's roster of experimental drugs in advanced stages of clinical testing has grown dramatically in the past few years.

"We have a late-stage pipeline bulge when you compare it to our peers; in terms of the number of Phase III projects, we are disproportionately large," Hassan said at the Reuters Health Summit in New York.

"That means we have more shots on goal as we look at the next decade," he said. He described Organon's drug Sugammadex as a potentially revolutionary new way to reverse the effects of anesthesia.

"It's a white-space opportunity -- new territory not occupied by anybody else -- (that) will change the way doctors practice surgery and anesthesia," he said.

The drug, now awaiting approval in Europe, has been shown in clinical trials to reverse the effects of anesthesia within three minutes, far faster than existing drugs.

Schering-Plough is buying Organon Biosciences from Dutch chemical group Akzo Nobel NV (AKZO.AS), along with several other Akzo businesses.

Schering-Plough, whose core business is prescription drugs, will be able to maximize sales of the Organon drugs, Hassan said.

"Being a pharmaceutical company, you know where the value is and you go after it and you can really unlock a lot of value," he said.

Organon's other drugs include schizophrenia treatment asenapine, which has been studied in late-stage trials, and an intra-vaginal contraceptive ring called Nuvaring that is already on the market.

"We believe we can do a lot more with Nuvaring," Hassan said, in terms of making it a more attractive approach to contraception.

Many analysts believe Schering-Plough's most important experimental drug is a blood clot preventer that it developed, which works by blocking a receptor to the protein thrombin. Hassan said Schering-Plough hopes to launch the medicine by 2010 or 2011 if it succeeds in ongoing trials and is approved.

(Additional reporting by Edward Tobin; editing by John Wallace)