Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc 's

There are currently no approved drugs other than Soliris for the treatment of PNH and aHUS. However, many companies, including major pharmaceutical and chemical companies as well as specialized biotechnology companies, are engaged in activities similar to our activities. Universities, governmental agencies and other public and private research organizations also conduct research and may market commercial products on their own or through joint ventures. Some of these entities may have:

substantially greater financial and other resources;

larger research and development staffs;

lower labor costs; and/or

more extensive marketing and manufacturing organizations.
Many of these companies and organizations have significant experience in preclinical testing, human clinical trials, product manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution and other regulatory approval and commercial procedures. They may also have a greater number of significant patents and greater legal resources to seek remedies for cases of alleged infringement of their patents by us to block, delay or compromise our own drug development process.
We compete with large pharmaceutical companies that produce and market synthetic compounds and with specialized biotechnology firms in the United States, Europe and in other countries and regions, as well as a growing number of large pharmaceutical companies that are applying biotechnology to their operations. A number of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies are developing new products for the treatment of the same diseases being targeted by us; in some instances, these products have already entered clinical trials or are already being marketed. Other companies are engaged in research and development based on complement proteins.

Several companies have either publicly announced their intentions to develop drugs which target the inflammatory effects of complement in the immune system or have had programs to develop complement inhibitor therapies. We believe that Soliris differs substantially from compounds of our potential competitors because Soliris has demonstrated to be safe and effective in two clinical indications by regulators in many jurisdictions around the world.