Bristol-Myers Squibb outlines amended research strategy

Bristol-Myers Squibb has announced that it will be evolving its strategic research and development focus in order to adopt a more specialised approach.

The move will see the company increase investment in immuno-oncology, an area of significant opportunity, while discontinuing broad-based discovery work in hepatitis C, diabetes and neuroscience.

It will continue to focus on HIV, hepatitis B, heart failure, oncology, immunoscience and fibrotic diseases, and will also maintain its support for current products such as Eliquis, Sprycel, Orencia, Erbitux, Baraclude and Reyataz/Sustiva.

This will help the company to achieve maximum operational success and provide value for patients.

Francis Cuss, executive vice-president and chief scientific officer at Bristol-Myers Squibb, said this will assist the company in "driving near-term growth through our current late-stage portfolio and ensuring the long-term growth of the company by evolving the disease areas and drug platforms on which we concentrate our research efforts".

Last month, the company announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2013, during which it experienced a nine percent year-on-year increase in sales.