Biotech Co.* | Pharma Co. | Type/Product Area | Terms/Details (Date) |
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Abaris Pharma Inc.* (subsidiary of Corus Pharma Inc.) | BattellePharma Inc. | Development and licensing agreement in which Abaris will use BattellePharma's Mystic inhalation technology for the delivery of its lidocaine drug to treat asthma | BattellePharma will receive an up-front payment, program milestone payments and royalties on product revenues (6/11) |
Accelrys Inc. (subsidiary of Pharmacopeia Inc.; PCOP) | Eli Lilly and Co. | A global software licensing agreement | The deal provides Lilly with the means to customize and distribute virtual high-throughput screening toolkits based on Accelrys' simulation application, Charmm; terms were not disclosed (5/15) |
ActivX | Kyorin Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Japan) | Three-year agreement to identify and optimize drug candidates for Type II diabetes | ActivX is responsible for assay development, screening, profiling and selectivity analysis; Kyorin is responsible for medicinal chemistry and clinical development, and gains worldwide rights to manufacture and commercialize any resulting products (6/4) |
Affinium Pharmaceuticals* | Pfizer Inc. | Three-year alliance for structure-based drug discovery | The deal is valued at up to $30M, excluding royalties; Affinium will use its functional, chemical and structural proteomics platform against Pfizer's targets; Affinium will receive funding for research and development and database licenses, as well as potential milestones and royalties (5/8) |
Affymetrix Inc. (AFFX) | NV Organon (the Netherlands) | Multiyear EasyAccess Silver agreement under which Organon will gain access to Affymetrix's standard and custom GeneChip arrays | Organon said the agreement improves its ability to identify and validate drug targets in its research programs (6/13) |
Albany Molecular Research Inc. (AMRI) | Merck & Co. Inc. | Agreement to conduct medicinal chemistry research and lead optimization in a three-year fee-for-service contract | The companies will work jointly to identify and develop small-molecule drug candidates for a proprietary Merck target (6/7) |
Anadys Pharmaceuticals Inc.* | Aventis SA (France) | Agreement in which Aventis accepted two assays prepared in the uHTS-Atlas format | Anadys completed validation of its fully automated ultra-high-throughput screening uHTS-Atlas technology by screening 100,000 discrete compounds in one day; financial details were not disclosed (5/15) |
Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ARNA) | Ferring Pharmaceuticals Inc. (unit of Ferring Holdings SA; Switzerland) | Research and license agreement focusing on a validated G protein-coupled receptor in reproductive biology | Arena will use its CART technology to develop a CART-activated version of the receptor, develop a drug-screening assay using the CART-activated receptor, and then synthesize and screen focused compound libraries based on structures provided by both companies; Arena will receive research and development funding and could receive milestone payments and royalties (5/29) |
Argenta Discovery Ltd.* (UK) | Amedis Pharmaceuticals | Drug discovery collaboration in which Argenta will create a series of small-molecule inhibitors of a selected number of protease enzymes | Amedis will apply its technology to generate molecules that selectively inhibit members of the metallo and aspartyl protease enzyme families (6/19) |
Astex Technology Ltd. (UK; LSE:ASTE) | Mitsubishi Pharma Corp. (Japan) | A structural biology research agreement to focus on solving novel human cytochrome P450 crystal structures that will be used in optimization of Mistubishi's compounds | Astex will apply its X-ray crystallography technologies to obtain crystal structures of cytochrome P450s complexed to Mitsubishi's compounds (6/10) |
Artemis Pharmaceuticals GmbH (Germany; subsidiary of Exelixis Inc.; EXEL) | Merck & Co. Inc. | Collaboration to create customized genetically engineered mouse models of disease based on Artemis' Conditional gene targeting technology | Artemis will create a specified number of customized mouse models based on Merck's genetic specifications; financial terms were not disclosed (6/10) |
Atugen AG* (Germany) | Byk Gulden (Germany; division | Three-year collaboration to validate a number of genetic targets associated with cancer and immunological diseases | Atugen receives an up-front payment, annual licensing fees, research funding and potential milestone payments, as well as potential royalties (5/14) |
Axovan AG* (Switzerland) | F. Hoffmann- La Roche Ltd. (Switzerland) | Agreement for the worldwide rights to an injectable endothelin antagonist to be developed for the prevention and treatment of vasospasm following subarachnoid hemorrhage | Roche and its Japanese operation retained rights to reacquire the compound in the future (4/22) |
BioFocus plc (UK; LSE:BIO) | Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Japan) | Agreement to provide medicinal chemistry knowledge for a lead optimization program | BioFocus will undertake both computational and synthetic chemistry on lead molecules identified by Daiichi from its internal research programs; financial details were not disclosed (5/15) |
Bionomics Ltd. (Australia; ASX:BNO) | Johnson & Johnson Pty. Ltd. (division of Johnson & Johnson) | Collaboration to validate Bionomics' angiogenesis drug targets | The deal also allows J&J to license Bionomics' drug targets for pharmaceutical development and commercialization; Bionomics will receive revenues of up to $50M plus royalties if all milestones are met (5/10) |
BioVex Ltd.* (UK) | GlaxoSmithKline plc (UK) | Agreement in the area of immunotherapy | GlaxoSmithKline will evaluate the ability of BioVex's ImmunoVEX vaccine platform to break immune tolerance to chronic disease through the delivery of specific antigens to dendritic cells; financial terms were not disclosed (6/10) |
BioVision AG* (Germany) | Novo Nordisk A/S (Denmark) | Collaboration to focus on new therapeutic approaches to Type II diabetes | BioVision's Peptidomics technology will be deployed in the research, for which BioVision will receive unspecified technology access and research fees, as well as potential milestone and licensing fees (5/6) |
Cephalon Inc. (CEPH) | Novuspharma SpA (Italy) | Three-year collaboration in which Novuspharma will use its preclinical research technology to screen a number of cancer compounds | Novuspharma will screen Cephalon's proteasome inhibitors; any new compounds resulting from the research will be jointly owned; Cephalon will retain marketing rights in the Americas and Japan, while Novuspharma gets them in Europe (5/7) |
Cetek Corp.* | Pharmacia Corp. | Multiyear research agreement to use Cetek's technology in screening new genomic targets | Cetek will develop assays for Pharmacia's targets and screen against compound libraries from Pharmacia (5/23) |
Chemical Diversity Labs Inc.* | Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Japan) | Contract research agreement through which CDL provided chemistry research services | The services were for rational hit identification and hit-to-lead development (5/3) |
Chiron Corp. (CHIR) | Merck & Co. Inc. | Nonexclusive licensing agreement for the research, development and commercialization of small-molecule therapeutics against hepatitis C virus drug targets | Financial and other terms were not disclosed (6/19) |
CombinatoRx | Sosei Co. Ltd. (Japan) | Research collaboration to discover novel combination drugs and validate novel indications in a range of disease areas | The collaboration will use Sosei's Drug Re-Profiling Platform, which aims to re-evaluate hundreds of Japanese compounds for which development or marketing was suspended in Japan; the companies will share property and commercial rights to resulting products with the originating Japanese pharmaceutical companies (4/30) |
Connetics Corp. (CNCT) | Yamanouchi Europe BV (division of Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.; Japan) | Licensing agreement for Velac gel | Connetics licensed exclusive rights to develop and commercialize the product in the U.S. and Canada, and has licensed nonexclusive rights in Mexico; Connetics will pay an initial $2M licensing fee, as well as future development milestones and royalties (5/15) |
Deltagen Inc. (DGEN) | Schering-Plough Research Institute | Collaboration to provide Schering-Plough access to a subset of Deltagen's DeltaBase knockout mice and data for internal research, including the G protein-coupled receptor gene class | SPRI also will have access to corresponding DeltaBase intellectual property rights to develop and commercialize products, in exchange for which Deltagen will receive certain milestone payments (4/25) |
DNA Sciences | GlaxoSmithKline | Agreement to study how inherited genetic variants may predispose certain individuals to drug-induced cardiovascular adverse events, specifically drug-induced long QT syndrome | Financial terms were not disclosed (6/17) |
Dyax Corp. | AstraZeneca plc (UK) | Collaboration and license agreement using Dyax's antibody phage display technology with AstraZeneca | Dyax will identify, characterize and optimize antibodies that bind specifically to the target provided by AstraZeneca, which gets the exclusive right to develop and commercialize the antibodies for therapeutic and in vitro diagnostic products; AstraZeneca will fund Dyax's part of the research, and potentially will make milestone and royalty payments (5/14) |
Eiffel Technol- ogies Ltd.* (Australia) | BattellePharma Inc. | Agreement under which Eiffel will create drug nanoparticles using its suite of supercritical fluid technologies for BattellePharma's development-stage asthma product | The reformulation will be tested with BattellePharma's Mystic inhalation delivery technology; each company will retain intellectual property related to its technology (6/14) |
Ethypharm SA* (France) | Biovail Corp. (Canada; NYSE:BVF; TSE:BVF) | Strategic alliance for the development and commercialization of a portion of Ethypharm's product portfolio | Biovail made an equity investment in Ethypharm, which will develop six products for Biovail using its drug delivery technologies; Biovail will have exclusive rights to products in North America, Puerto Rico and Mexico in exchange for milestones and royalties (4/15) |
Euroscreen SA* (Belgium) | Pfizer Inc. | License agreement that gives Pfizer access to Euroscreen's CCR5 patent rights | The license covers various aspects of the chemokine receptor CCR5; financial terms were not disclosed (5/23) |
Evotec OAI AG (Germany; Neuer Markt:EVT) | Taisho Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Japan) | Drug discovery collaboration in which Evotec will perform biology research and development on selected Taisho targets and develop assays for those targets using Evotec's VLiP technology | Evotec will screen the targets against compounds from the Evotec corporate chemical library using EVOscreen, its ultra-high-throughput screening platform, and will characterize hits identified in the screening (5/22) |
Exelixis Inc. | Merck & Co. Inc. | Collaboration for the joint design and generation of small-molecule compound libraries for high-throughput drug screening | The companies will jointly own the resulting libraries; Exelixis will be responsible for all components of library production, analytics, informatics and formatting (5/1) |
Gene Logic Inc. (GLGC) | Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. (Japan) | Subscription agreement to Gene Logic's GeneExpress | It will be used as a primary research tool throughout Takeda's global drug discovery and development infrastructure; Takeda researchers will gain access to BioExpress and to ToxExpress (3/27) |
GenOway SA* (France) | Servier Inc.* (France) | Nonexclusive, multitarget deal covering the in vivo validation of gene targets identified at the Institut de Recherches Servier | GenOway will use its target validation technologies to provide Servier predictable results on the quality of its targets; the one-year deal is renewable (5/2) |
Genta Inc. | Aventis SA | Agreement to develop Genasense to target the Bcl-2 protein and boost the effectiveness of chemotherapy | The agreement is potentially worth $480M; Genta will get $135M in initial and near-term payments, including $75M in a potential equity investment based on a milestone; $40M in development fees; $10M in convertible debt; $10M as a licensing fee; another $280M in cash; and $65M in convertible notes based on clinical and regulatory milestones (4/29) |
Immunex Corp. (IMNX) | Schering AG (Germany) | Agreement for the worldwide rights to the cancer drug Leukine | Schering acquired the worldwide rights for present and future indications for $380M in cash (5/6) |
Immunomedics Inc. (IMMU) | Beckman Coulter Inc. | Agreement in which Immunomedics bought Beckman Coulter's 43% interest in the cancer therapeutic joint venture, IBC Pharmaceuticals LLC | Beckman Coulter received 138,900 shares of Immunomedics common stock that were worth about $1.8M, and a five-year warrant to purchase an additional 150,000 shares of common stock at $65 per share (5/24) |
Inhale Therapeutic Systems Inc. (INHL) | Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development LLC (unit of Johnson & Johnson) | Agreement to investigate the use of Inhale's supercritical fluid technology for a new application | The project will apply supercritical fluids technology from Inhale's subsidiary, Bradford Particle Design, to chemical manufacturing; Inhale will retain the rights to develop and market the new technology (4/30) |
Inhale Therapeutic Systems Inc. (INHL) | Sheffield Pharmaceuticals | Agreement to use Inhale's supercritical fluid technology in the development of an inhaled form of dihydroergotamine to treat various forms of migraine | Inhale will supply the particle engineering technology and receive R&D funding, milestone payments, and royalties upon commercialization; Sheffield is responsible for all other aspects of clinical development and marketing of the product; Inhale will produce DHE particles for clinical development and commercial sale (4/30) |
Nobex Corp.* | GlaxoSmithKline | Agreement to develop a modified oral insulin for controlling post-meal blood glucose levels | The agreement is valued at up to $283M; GSK is taking over development funding and will fund manufacturing and marketing; it will make an up-front payment to Nobex and make potential milestone and royalty payments (5/22) |
Orchid BioSciences Inc. (ORCH) | Merck & Co. Inc. | Collaboration to conduct a retrospective clinical pharmacogenomic study in 2,000 managed-care asthma patients | The study will assess the impact of a relatively common genetic variation on clinical outcomes and health care resource use for patients using common asthma-management drugs (5/1) |
SignalGene Inc. (Canada; TSE:SGI) | Novuspharma SpA (Italy) | Material transfer and option agreement in oncology | Novuspharma will conduct in vivo studies to determine efficacy against various cancers and preliminary safety studies of SG292; Novuspharma has an option to negotiate exclusive rights to the SG292 compound for further preclinical and clinical development and commercialization in oncology indications (6/5) |
Sunesis Pharmaceuticals Inc.* | Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development (unit of Johnson & Johnson) | Research collaboration to discover small-molecule enzyme inhibitors for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases | Sunesis will receive undisclosed up-front payments and research funding; the deal also includes potential research and development milestones and royalties on any sales; J&J gains an exclusive worldwide license to any resulting products (5/6) |
Syrrx Inc.* | F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. (Switzerland) | One-year agreement to determine protein structures in multiple therapeutic areas | The agreement will make use of Syrrx's high-throughput microcrystallization technology in determining protein structures in a number of undisclosed disease areas selected by Roche; Roche will pay an up-front access fee, as well as potential milestone payments and license fees (5/2) |
Syrrx Inc.* | Sankyo Co. Ltd. (Japan) | Collaborative research agreement to apply Syrrx's knowledge in high-throughput microcrystallization of proteins for 3-dimensional structure determination across multiple drug targets identified by Sankyo | Syrrx will receive an up-front technology access fee, as well as success fees and license fees by Sankyo if goals are met (6/13) |
TransForm Pharmaceuticals Inc.* | ALZA Corp. | Three-year collaboration to develop drugs that will use ALZA's D-Trans transdermal delivery technology | ALZA will use TransForm's technology to optimize the formulation of products ALZA has in its pipeline; ALZA paid Transform an up-front licensing fee and will provide the cost of development for customized high-throughput platforms; ALZA also agreed to pay milestones and royalties (6/5) |
TransForm Pharmaceuticals Inc.* | Eli Lilly and Co. | Multiyear agreement that focuses on Lilly's lead optimization process | The goal is to enhance Lilly's selection and optimization of early drug candidates; TransForm will receive up-front research funding, milestone payments and royalties (6/7) |
Tularik Inc. | Sankyo Co. Ltd. (Japan) | Agreement to investigate therapeutics that act on orphan G protein-coupled receptors | Tularik will receive a cash payment in recognition of its contribution of five GPCR targets; Sankyo has the option to select one or more of the targets for further development; Sankyo will support Tularik research and development activities for up to four years; the parties will share equally all clinical development costs and profits in the U.S. and Europe; Tularik is entitled to milestone and royalty payments (6/11) |
Variagenics Inc. (VGNX) | Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. (subsidiary of Novartis AG; Switzerland) | Collaboration to study two Novartis compounds in clinical development for prostate cancer Gleevec and PKI166 | Variagenics will apply its integrated cancer pharmacogenomics platform to identify potential markers of drug efficacy for the compounds; Variagenics will provide an exclusive license to Novartis for any markers that are predictive of therapeutic response, while Variagenics will retain exclusive rights to develop any resulting DNA diagnostic tests (5/2) |
Vectura Ltd.* | Zambon Group | Licensing agreement for Vectura's pulmonary drug formulation technology | Zambon will use the technology for the development of a dry-powder inhaler product; terms were not disclosed (6/12**) |
Vernalis Group | F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. (Switzerland) | Collaboration for drugs to treat depression and anxiety | Roche has an option to license worldwide rights to compounds arising from Vernalis' research and development programs, exercisable on completion of Phase I studies; Roche will pay Vernalis an annual option fee and additional sums for achieving milestones; if the option is exercised, the parties would establish a joint research collaboration and Roche would provide research funding to Vernalis; Vernalis also would have the potential to receive up to $80M in milestone payments (5/14) |
Zygogen LLC* | Aventis SA | Agreement to develop a zebrafish model for thrombosis | The collaboration will combine Zygogen's Z-Tag technology and Aventis' expertise in thrombosis drug discovery to create a new disease model that can be used for identifying and validating new targets, as well as compound screening (5/20) |
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Notes: | |||
# The information in the chart does not cover agricultural agreements or those between biotech companies. | |||
This chart includes a collaboration that occurred before April 18, 2002, but it was not listed in the previous chart. | |||
* Private companies are indicated with an asterisk. | |||
** Denotes the date the item ran in BioWorld International. | |||
Unless otherwise noted, stock symbols listed are on the Nasdaq market. | |||
ASX = Australian Stock Exchange; LSE = London Stock Exchange; NYSE = New York Stock Exchange; TSE = Toronto Stock Exchange | |||
