Actelion CEO says PAH breakthrough unlikely, focus on new diseases

* Actelion (LSE: 0QMN.L - news) expects no scientific breakthroughs on PAH

* Sees (Shanghai: 600481.SS - news) 2017 regulatory submission for antibiotic

* CEO "pessimistic" about competing for on acquisitions

By John Miller

ZURICH, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Actelion expects no imminent scientific breakthroughs in treatments for deadly pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and will look to grow instead in new disease areas, its chief executive Jean-Paul Clozel said on Tuesday.

Clozel, who said Europe's largest biotechnology company had not had any takeover approaches, is still on the look-out for acquisitions, but is finding it hard to compete on price.

Earlier Actelion forecast that core earnings in 2016 will grow, surprising analysts who feared a potential profit decline at the group, which has built its fortunes on treating PAH.

Clozel is being helped by accelerating revenue for Actelion's more recent PAH treatments Opsumit and Uptravi, which the company began selling last month. Generic rivals for patent-expired Tracleer have also been delayed.

Without a new silver bullet for PAH on the horizon, however, Clozel is staking Actelion's fortunes on introducing a new drug every two years for a broad range of rare diseases.

It has nine drugs in studies, including medicine for hard-to-treat bacterial infections that it expects to submit for regulatory approval in 2017 and another for multiple sclerosis in 2018 or 2019.

"In pulmonary arterial hypertension, it will be very difficult to bring new drugs which will not replace another one. There is no scientific breakthrough which would tell us there is a way to go for pulmonary hypertension," Clozel said.

"So, we have always considered we should grow outside PAH, this is what we do."

In-house research on new drugs, Actelion spent 400 million Swiss francs ($407 million) in 2015 and expects a similar 2016 R&D budget, is key, as Clozel has been stymied on acquisitions.

Last year, AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN - news) pipped him on the purchase of U.S (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) biotech company ZS Pharma (NasdaqGM: ZSPH - news) for $2.7 billion.

While Clozel reiterated he is still on the hunt for targets, he cannot keep pace with larger companies with "deeper pockets."

"They are ready to pay much higher prices," he said. "So I am quite pessimistic that we can compete with these companies." ($1 = 0.9837 Swiss francs) (Editing by Alexander Smith)