By Randall Osborne Editor It's a four-chambered muscle about the size of your fist, jumping with each beat (when it's healthy) like a rib-caged animal that wants out. Said by poets to be the internal headquarters of love, it's the treasure of the chest, the arterial hub, the pump after which engineers consciously or not may have modeled all other pumps. The heart. For biotechnology investors, the heart is just another organ, drugs for which may be "played" with profits in mind. And
Company (Symbol)* University/Non-Profit Type Of Agreement Product Area Details (Date) Aastrom Biosciences Inc. (ASTM) The Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute at Wayne State University Development agreement New cell-based therapies Project will be funded through a $2.2M grant; the work will be done through a Center for Cell Therapy, which will pursue cord blood stem cell therapies for leukemia patients and dendritic cell vaccines for cancer treatment (2/14) Advanced Biosystems Inc
By Randall Osborne Editor One of the historic leaps or lurches, anyway of biotechnology's stop-start growth was marked by the approval in 1995 of Malvern, Pa.-based Centocor Inc.'s clot-buster Reopro (partnered with Eli Lilly and Co., of Indianapolis), which many say was the bellwether for monoclonal antibodies as "magic bullets" against disease. By the time genomics came along and swept everything into the background, the excitement over "monoclonals," as they're called, had begun to
Company* (Country, Symbol) Company* (Country, Symbol) Type/Product Area Terms/Details (Date) 3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals Inc. (DDDP) Centocor Inc. (subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson; NYSE:JNJ) Agreement for worldwide rights to 3DP's orally active direct thrombin inhibitor program, 3DP-4815 3DP will receive an up-front cash payment of $6M and further payments of up to $44M based on milestones; Centocor will be responsible for development and worldwide commercialization (1/2) Abgenix Inc
* Comments by Shearman & Sterling partner Vicki Veenker on page 2, column 2, paragraph 3, in the Nov. 20, 2000, issue of BioWorld Financial Watch referred to the Oxford Gene Technology vs. Affymetrix Inc. case, and not to any cases involving Incyte Genomics Inc. * In the March 19, 2001, issue of BioWorld Financial Watch, Jeffrey Leiden should have been identified as Abbott Laboratories Inc.'s chief scientific officer, not the CSO of Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. Editor's Note: The
By Randall Osborne Editor The lyrics of an old Kenny Rogers song tell how the gambler needs to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. Players in the biotechnology sector must be humming that tune rather a lot these days. When they're not screaming. Analysts have been singing a certain kind of song, too. It's a melody that celebrates the virtues of holding on for the long haul, understanding the industry's tendency to grow slowly two steps forward, one step back. Investors, according
Company* (Symbol) Product Description Indication Status (Date) CANCER ImClone Systems Inc. (IMCL) IMC-C225 Anti-epidermal growth factor receptor mono-clonal antibody Refractory colorectal carcinoma FDA granted fast-track status to IMC-C225 (2/1) Lorus Therapeutics Inc. (Canada; LORFF; TSE:LOR) Virulizin Non-toxic immunotherapy that recruits monocytes and macrophages to attack tumor cells Prostate cancer FDA granted orphan status for Virulizin (2/20) Millennium Pharmaceuticals
Company* (Symbol) Product Description Indication Status (Date) CANCER Aastrom Biosciences Inc. (ASTM) -- CB-1 cord blood cell therapy Adult leukemia Company initiated patient enrollment in a clinical trial (2/27) Aphton Corp. (APHT) Anti-gastrin vaccine Vaccine that induces antibodies in patients that neutralize gastrin-17 Advanced pancreatic cancer Phase II results indicated a greater increase in survival in treated patients compared to increases in a prior trial; the study
By Randall Osborne Editor From the start, almost like the Fuller brush salesmen or encyclopedia peddlers, biotechnology company officials have been arriving on the doorsteps of pharmaceutical firms, pleading for the chance to show their wares. Things have grown a bit more sophisticated lately. There are still the fumbling, sweaty presentations at conferences by biotechnology CEOs ("Can we back up? I think we skipped a slide"), but fewer speakers these days tend to stammer during their
Company* (Symbol) Product Description Indication Status (Date) CANCER Alfacell Corp. (OTC BB:ACEL) Onconase Cytotoxic ribonuclease; member of the superfamily of pancreatic ribonucleases Malignant mesothelioma Onconase received orphan medicinal product designation in Europe (2/21) Cell Therapeutics Inc. (CTIC) Trisenox Arsenic trioxide injection Relapsed acute promyelocytic leukemia European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products validated the marketing authorization
By Randall Osborne Editor Joe Dougherty, senior analyst with Lehman Brothers Inc., doesn't mind acknowledging that the company's new report on genomics is creating ripples in the industry. "But a lot of the people who are most upset about it haven't read it," he said. Titled "The Fruits of Genomics: Drug Pipelines Face Indigestion Until The New Biology Ripens," the 109-page report was put together with McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm. "The fundamental purpose was to look
Biotech Co.* (Symbol) Pharma Co. (Country) Product Disclosed Funding (M) Terms/Details (Date) Abgenix Inc. (ABGX) Lonza Biologics (UK) Cell culture production suite ND Lonza will make available exclusively to Abgenix, for five years, a cell culture production suite within its facility in Slough, England (1/29) AEterna Laboratories Inc. (Canada; AELA) Grupo Ferrer Internacional SA (Spain) and Medac GmbH (Germany) Neovastat C$35 (US$22.9) The commercialization and distribution
Biotech Co.* (Symbol) Pharma Co. (Country) Type/Product Area Disclosed Funding (M) Terms/Details (Date) Adprotech Ltd. (UK)* Elan Corp. plc (Ireland) Research agreement to evaluate Adprotech's Immudaptin adjuvant technology for use in an immunotherapeutic for Alzheimer's disease ND Adprotech will modify selected drug candiates with Immudaptin, and Elan will evaluate their therapeutic potential (1/17**) Amersham Pharmacia Biotech* The Procter & Gamble Co. Worldwide license agreement
I. MODIFIED AGREEMENTS Biotech Co.* (Symbol) Pharma Co. (Country) Change from original agreement Disclosed Funding (M) Terms/Details (Date) 3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals Inc. (DDDP) Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. Increase in Bristol-Myers' commitment to purchase ThermoFluor high-through-put screening workstations from three to seven, as well as the removal of a non-exclusive license to 3DP's protein expression/refolding technology and a nonexclusive licence to 3DP's GPCR structural
By Randall Osborne Editor Talk about mixed messages. Nobody's disputing that last year's boom in biotechnology is over, and the mad scramble to go public is but a memory. It was a stretch of time when some of the least fit companies sought to file for initial public offerings (IPOs) only to have underwriters turn them away. That's over. By the end of 2000, the IPO house was as quiet as a transgenic mouse, and you could count the number of firms that have priced IPOs on one hand, if
I. FINANCING OF PRIVATE BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES: $46.03M Company Location Date Amt. (M) Details Bioheart Inc. Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 2/28 $11 Bioheart raised $11M in its first round of venture financing led by Tyco International Ltd.'s venture capital unit, Tyco Ventures Curacyte AG Munich, Germany 2/8 EUR7 US$6.5 Curacyte raised US$6.5M in a seed round of capital financing led by TVM Techno Venture Management GmbH; it included a consortium of European life sciences investors
Total: $59.8M Company (Symbol)# Type Of Financing Number Of Shares, Units Or Warrants (M) Amount Raised (M) Investors; Placement Agents; Details (Date)@ Advanced Viral Research Corp. (OTC BB:ADVR) Credit line financing Company said the original deal for a $20M equity line of credit was increased to $50M; the credit line was constructed by The May Davis Group (2/16) Antares Pharma (Switzerland; MEDJ) Private placement of common shares 1.2S (plus warrants to purchase 0.3S) US$7
I. COMMENCED TRADING IN FEBRUARY Company (Symbol) Date Filed Date Comm. Shares/Units (M) Price Shares Out (M) Lead, Other Underwriters Gross (M) Net (M) INITIAL OFFERINGS Cytovax Biotechnologies Inc. (Canada; TSE:CXB.A)1 11/16 2/21 1.67S C$6 8.1 Acumen Capital Finance Partners Raymond James Ltd. Dlouhy Merchant Group First Associates Investments C$10 US$6.5 C$9.25 US$6 Hemosol Inc. (Canada; HMSL; TSE:HML)2 1/18 2/28 7S US$8.78 32.27 UBS Warburg LLC Dain Rauscher
By Randall Osborne Editor NEW YORK Introduced as a "master of what not very many people can do that is, turn bust into boom," Centocor Inc. CEO David Holveck provided survival tips from his years on the battlefield of biotechnology financing, at the third annual Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) CEO & Investor Conference last week. "We've had some good days and some bad days," Holveck said. "But certainly in the last 10 years, it's been good." Holveck spoke to conference
I. COMPLETED MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS Company Acquired** (Country; Symbol) Acquired By Or Merged With (Country; Symbol) Date Announced Date Completed Value (M)*** Terms/Details Agritope Inc. (AGTO) Exelixis Inc. (EXEL) 9/10 12/8 $31 Exelixis acquired Agritope by issuing 1.7M shares, which at the Dec. 8 opening stock price comes to about $31M; Agritope will be renamed Exelixis Plant Sciences Inc. and will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Exelixis Aquila Biopharmaceuticals Inc. (AQLA
By Randall Osborne Editor It's a four-chambered muscle about the size of your fist, jumping with each beat (when it's healthy) like a rib-caged animal that wants out. Said by poets to be the internal headquarters of love, it's the treasure of the chest, the arterial hub, the pump after which engineers consciously or not may have modeled all other pumps. The heart. For biotechnology investors, the heart is just another organ, drugs for which may be "played" with profits in mind. And