New Company to Make Combination Drugs

A Chicago-area pharmaceutical entrepreneur has launched a company to develop combination medicines that treat multiple ailments with one pill.

Brian Tambi, who once turned around a generic drug maker, has formed BrianT Laboratories in Lake Forest, Ill., to develop branded drugs that combine cholesterol medications with hypertension drugs.

Plans call for the company eventually to develop a portfolio of combination drugs.

Combination pills are more convenient and address multiple consumer-health issues, particularly aging baby boomers, analysts say.

The company believes the drugs will protect brand-name drug makers’ share of lucrative franchises, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The global cholesterol market alone is estimated at more than $30 billion.

Major drug makers such as Pfizer Inc., Merck & Co. and Abbott Laboratories are already developing combination superpills to treat a variety of conditions.

Tambi says combination pills can be developed for a fraction of the time and cost of original drugs — about four years for combination pills compared with 12 for the original.

You do not have to do the long, drawn-out trials … because a lot of the safety data is already in the public domain, Tambi said.