Biotech Co.* | Pharma Co. | Type/Product Area | Terms/Details (Date) |
| | |||
aaiPharma Inc. | Tanabe Holding America Inc. (subsidiary of Tanabe Seiyaku | Drug development joint venture agreement through which the companies will develop, manufacture, sell and potentially license pharmaceutical products for the Americas, Europe and other territories | Tanabe will provide compounds from its research and development discovery pipeline to the joint venture with a focus on U.S. development (7/30) |
Adolor Corp. | Eli Lilly and Co. | Licensing agreement for six patents to help develop products related to peripherally selective opioid antagonists | Adolor paid Lilly $4M up front and agreed to pay clinical and regulatory milestones, as well as royalties to Lilly if products develop from the research (8/12) |
Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics BV* (the Netherlands) | Schering-Plough | License agreement for the use of interleukin-10 under Schering's patent portfolio | Interleukin-10 will be used for ex vivo gene therapy in inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract (9/3) |
Anadys Pharmaceuticals Inc.* | F. Hoffmann- | Collaboration in which Anadys will use its structure-assisted drug design and high-output medicinal chemistry to advance lead compounds identified by Roche | Financial terms were not disclosed; the collaboration is focused around a Roche oncology target (8/8) |
AngioGenex | Kirin Brewery | One-year sponsored development agreement in which AngioGenex will apply its anti-Id technology to create a genetically altered mouse that will be used in research on various human diseases including cancer | Kirin will compensate AngioGenex for providing the mouse, and both companies will use the mouse in research programs (7/16) |
Ark Therapeutics | Tanabe Seiyaku | Collaboration to develop and market treatments for cachexia, or muscle wasting associated with cancer and AIDS | Ark will develop one of Tanabe's existing compounds in return for U.S. and European marketing rights (7/17**) |
Arrow | Toyama Chemical Co. Ltd. (Japan) | Collaboration to discover antifungal compounds targeting Candida, Aspergillus and other causes of systemic fungal infections | Arrow will provide the target protein and the screening assay; Toyama will be responsible for all the formal preclinical studies and the medicinal chemistry; Toyama has rights to the Japanese and Pacific Rim markets, while Arrow retains the rights to European and U.S. markets (6/26) |
Atugen AG* (Germany) | Schering AG (Germany) | Collaboration to validate a number of drug targets associated with cancer | Atugen will develop GeneBlocs, specially designed antisense oligonucleotides, which inhibit expression of specific drug target candidates selected by Schering; Atugen will receive an up-front payment, annual licensing fees, research funding and milestone payments (9/17) |
Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc. (AVAN) | Medison Pharma | Agreement for clinical research, marketing and distribution rights to Neurodex in Israel | Medison will manage a Phase III trial to examine the drug's safety and efficacy in treating emotional lability in multiple sclerosis patients; Avanir will receive royalties on product sales (8/8) |
BioProgress Technology Inc. (OTC BB:BPRG) | Bristol-Myers | Exclusive license agreement for a variation of BioProgress's core XGel film technology | Other details were not released (8/30) |
Biota Holdings Ltd. (Australia; ASX:BTA) | GlaxoSmithKline | Collaboration to develop treatments for hepatitis C | The deal is worth A$6.5M (US$3.5M); Biota will synthesize nucleosides and use its N-MAX small-molecule nucleotide discovery platform to identify compounds for GSK to screen; the two-year deal includes potential milestone payments (8/21**) |
Celera | Abbott | Long-term alliance to develop, manufacture and market a range of in vitro molecular diagnostic products | The alliance is designed to develop molecular diagnostic products to detect and manage infectious diseases and chronic conditions such as cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases, central nervous system disorders and cancer; the companies will evenly split expenses and profits (6/25) |
Celera Genomics Group (NYSE: | Merck & Co. | License agreement giving Merck access to Celera's human and mouse genome databases | Financial terms were not disclosed (7/9) |
Chiron Corp. | Abbott | Nonexclusive licensing agreement for the research, development and commercialization of small-molecule therapeutics against certain hepatitis C virus drug targets contained in the HCV genome | Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed (7/10) |
Cypress Bioscience Inc. (CYPB) | Collegium Pharmaceutical | Agreement to develop formulations and new analogues of milnacipran | The companies will aim to develop follow- on products with superior performance to the current formulation of milnacipran (9/6) |
DepoMed Inc. (AMEX:DMI) | Biovail Corp. | Licensing agreement for DepoMed's Phase III once- daily diabetes drug Metformin GR | Biovail will buy 2.4M newly issued DepoMed shares for $12.3M and agreed to pay $25M if and when the drug wins FDA approval; Biovail gains the right to market Metformin GR in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada; Biovail will pay DepoMed royalties (5/29) |
Diacrin Inc. | Terumo Corp. | Development and license agreement for Japan | The license involves human muscle cell transplantation technology for cardiac disease, which Diacrin is testing in multi-center human trials in the U.S.; Terumo will fund all development in Japan, and Diacrin will receive an up-front license fee of $2M, milestone payments and a royalty on product sales (9/16) |
DNA Sciences | Merck KgaA (Germany) | Collaboration to allow DNA Sciences to use its genetic variant discovery platform to help Merck optimize drugs | Financial details were not disclosed (9/4) |
Durect Corp. | Voyager Pharmaceutical Corp. | Development and commercialization agreement on a product using Voyager's patented product for Alzheimer's disease | Voyager gains the rights to commercialize the product worldwide; Durect will receive from Voyager undisclosed milestone payments, funding for all its efforts related to development, and royalties on product sales (7/29) |
Epimmune Inc. | Aventis Pasteur | Agreement whereby Aventis will have for a limited time the right to license certain epitopes from two cancer-associated antigens | Aventis will evaluate them for possible integration into its pox virus therapeutic cancer vaccine program; Epimmune received an undisclosed evaluation license fee and will receive further license fees if Aventis exercises its option; it also will receive milestone payments and royalties (7/9) |
Essential Therapeutics | Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co. | Collaboration in which Essential will use its technology to develop assay systems for the discovery of antibiotics and will perform high- throughput screening of compounds | Essential will screen the compounds through a service agreement with its subcontractor, Cetek Corp.; Fujisawa willconduct lead generation and lead optimization; it will retain exclusive worldwide development, manufacturing and marketing rights on resulting products (8/9) |
Evotec OAI AG | Roche Diagnostics GmbH (division of F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.; Switzerland) | License agreement covering the melting curve analysis of investigated gene fragments from polymerase chain reactions | Further details were not disclosed (8/22) |
Flamel Technologies SA (France; FLML) | GlaxoSmithKline | Licensing agreement for Flamel's controlled-release Micropump technology in connection with the sachet formulation of its drug, Augmentin | Flamel will receive an up-front payment of $1.5M, additional milestones upon achievement of certain events and royalties on any sales of the product (7/8) |
GeneFormatics | Arakis Ltd. | Agreement to discover pharmaceutical products developed using advances in biology to identify applications | The deal calls for GeneFormatics to use its structural proteomics capabilities to identify and describe secondary biochemical functional sites; Arakis will combine the information with its knowledge and databases in order to define and validate possible targets (7/8) |
Gene Logic | Mitsubishi Pharma | Subscription agreement for | Mitsubishi gains access to the database and its related bioinformatics interface, Gene-Express; the information obtained will be used to support Mitsubishi's internal target identification and target validation initiatives (9/4) |
Gene Logic Inc. | Schering-Plough Research Institute | A GeneExpress CustomSuite database access agreement to use the product in Schering's research and development operations | The companies also will conduct a pilot toxicity study; financial terms were not disclosed (6/28) |
Genetronics Biomedical Corp. (AMEX:GEB) | Boehringer | Research and option agreement to evaluate the performance of Genetronics' electroporation technology for the delivery of nucleic acids into arterial walls for the treatment of peripheral vascular disease | Genetronics will conduct experiments for Boehringer Ingelheim for in vivo transfer of therapeutic molecules into arterial walls; Boehringer will provide payments to Genetronics (7/10) |
Genmab A/S (Denmark; CSE:GEN) | JARI Pharma- | Alliance to develop new antibody therapeutic products | JARI will provide disease targets, and Genmab will use its fully human antibody technology to create and develop new products; the alliance covers a range of inflammatory diseases (7/12) |
Graffinity Pharmaceuticals AG* (Germany) | Eli Lilly and Co. | Agreement under which Graffinity will identify small-molecule "hit" compounds against Lilly targets | Graffinity will use its chemical microarrays, drug fragment libraries and label- free imaging of protein-ligand interaction technologies in the effort (7/24) |
GTC Biothera- peutics Inc. (GTCB) | Pharming Group | Agreement to accelerate commercialization of Pharming's recombinant protein technology | The companies cross-licensed technology patents for the production of therapeutic proteins; Pharming will receive an up-front payment of €1.5M (US$1.5M) from GTC and royalties on products developed (6/26) |
Human Genome Sciences Inc. (HGSI) | Schering-Plough | Agreement for exclusive rights to two human antibodies derived from Human Genome Sciences' technology | HGS will receive milestone payments and royalties from products that result from either antibody (7/24) |
Human Genome Sciences Inc. (HGSI) | Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. (Japan) | Takeda exercised option to develop and commercialize Trail receptor-1 human monoclonal antibody in Japan | HGS retains development and commercialization rights to Trail-R1 mAb in the rest of the world (8/14) |
Immune Network Ltd. (Canada; IMMFF) | Jacobus Pharmaceutical | Licensing agreement under which Immune Network will provide Jacobus with exclusive rights to its preclinical and clinical data and patentson dapsone, an anti-inflam matory drug candidate for Alzheimer's and other diseases | Jacobus will provide Immune Network with a double-digit royalty on that part of dapsone revenue that exceeds certain preset thresholds (9/16) |
Immuno- | Pierre-Fabre Medicament (division of BioMerieux Pierre Fabre; France) and Institut de Recherche Pierre Fabre (France) | Exclusive worldwide agreement in which PFM will provide IDM access to its line of bacterial membrane- based compounds | The compounds will be used as maturation agents in IDM's Dendritophage-based line of cell drugs; IDM will have an exclusive option on the first of these compounds for defined indications in oncology; IDM will make certain milestone payments to PFM, and PFM will supply clinical-grade and GMP material to IDM (6/27) |
Immunomedics | Daiichi Pure Chemicals Co. | Nonexclusive license agreement concerning Immunomedics' carcino-embryonic antigen patents | Daiichi will pay $917,000 and undisclosed royalties, including back royalties and interest due since 1997, to Immunomedics; Daiichi will be permitted to supply com- ponents for CEA immunoassay kits distributed worldwide by Beckman Coulter Inc. for use on Beckman's Access System (7/10) |
Immusol Inc.* | Chugai Pharma | Drug target discovery and in | The collaboration will focus on de novo discovery of targets in in vivo systems using Immusol's Inverse Genomics platform; Immusol will receive royalties on any products that arise out of the work (7/22) |
Inpharmatica | Daiichi Pharmaceutical | Agreement for a three-year, multimillion-pound contract giving Daiichi access to Biopendium | Inpharmatica secured the deal with Daiichi through its Japanese partner, Pharma-design, which will provide training and support for the system (7/17**) |
InSite Vision | Bausch & Lomb | License agreement to develop InSite's ISV-403 for bacterial ocular infections | InSite is responsible for development; Bausch & Lomb gain exclusive rights to most of the world besides Japan; it also hasmanufacturing and marketing responsibility; Bausch & Lomb will make a preferred equity investment in InSite and make additional equity investments as mile- stones are achieved (8/7) |
Kosan | Eli Lilly and Co. | Exclusive licensing agreement for intellectual property owned by Lilly to develop polyketides as pharmaceutical products using genetic engineering | The license includes rights to 23 issued U.S. patents and 49 issued foreign patents, as well as many pending applications (8/20) |
LifeSpan BioSciences | Sankyo Co. | Subscription agreement to the nuclear receptor module of LifeSpan's DrugTarget | The module provides subscribers access to information on nuclear receptors for use in identifying and validating new gene targets for drug discovery (7/23) |
LION bioscience | Pfizer Inc. | Worldwide license agreement | Pfizer purchased a license to the absorption module of iDEA; the software has been customized for high-throughput use at Pfizer's Ann Arbor, Mich., laboratories (6/25) |
Memory Pharmaceuticals Corp.* | F. Hoffmann- | Licensing agreement focused on the development of compounds for Alzheimer's disease | Roche acquired an exclusive worldwide license to develop compounds that are in preclinical studies; the deal includes an up-front cash payment, research and development funding, and potential milestone and royalty payments (7/30) |
MerLion Pharmaceuticals Pte. Ltd.* (Singapore) | Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Japan) | Discovery and development collaboration related to Fujisawa's therapeutic targets | Further details were not disclosed (7/25) |
Microbia Inc.* (Israel) | Teva | Collaboration to develophigher-yielding biomanufacturing processes using Microbia's Precision Engineering technology | The goal is to accelerate process development to produce pharmaceuticals with high efficiency and purity (9/4) |
Micrologix Biotech Inc. (Canada; OTC BB: MGIXF; TSE:MBI) | Fujisawa | Agreement to develop and market Micrologix's topical Phase III anti-infective product in a deal that could bring Micrologix as much as $21M | A division of Fujisawa will pay future development costs of the anti-infective product, MBI 226, and also will be responsible for manufacturing; Fujisawa gains exclusive rights to the product in the U.S., Canada and Mexico; Micrologix could receive as much as $21M more through an up-front payment and milestones, as well as a 20% royalty on sales in three regions (7/9) |
Nanosphere | Takara Bio Inc. | Agreement to form a development and distribution alliance | Takara will have exclusive distribution rights for certain Nanosphere products in Asia and nonexclusive rights in Europe; the alliance also includes the development of detection systems that combine Nanosphere's nanoparticle DNA probe technology; Takara also will make an equity investment in Nanosphere (7/22) |
Nautilus | Aventis Pasteur | Agreement to develop improved producer cell lines for vaccines for three specific undisclosed targets | Nautilus' high-throughput Biomics platform will be used to develop the cell clones; Nautilus will receive full research funding and milestone and royalty payments on any product sales; Aventis will receive exclusive worldwide rights to use the cell lines selected by Nautilus (9/16) |
NeoGenesis Pharmaceuticals Inc.* | Pharmacia Corp. | Multiyear collaboration to discover and develop drugs that target undisclosed diseases | NeoGenesis will use its chemical genomics expertise with targets provided by Pharmacia; NeoGenesis will receive up-front payments for research and milestone and royalty payments on any sales (7/31) |
Neurosciences Victoria Ltd.* (Australia) | Schering AG (Germany) | Three-year neuroscience research collaboration | The collaboration combined academic research and industrial development in neuroscience; it is focused on the development of approaches to the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders, including new imaging agents (6/27) |
NexMed Inc. | Unnamed Japanese pharmaceutical company | Research and development agreement in which NexMed will develop a tape/patch treatment for urinary dysfunction that incorporates its partner's drug compound with NexACT technology | NexMed received an undisclosed up- front payment, with periodic payments to be made based on milestones; NexMed retains the right to manufacture and commercialize products worldwide, except in Japan (8/19) |
Norak | AstraZeneca plc | Limited, nonexclusive license agreement to use the Transfluor technology for G protein-coupled receptor drug discovery | Norak will provide its Transfluor technology and knowledge related to GPCR targets to AstraZeneca for use in an internal GPCR drug discovery project (6/25) |
Norak Biosciences | Merck & Co. | License agreement under which Norak will supply its Transfluor cell lines expressing G protein-coupled receptor targets of interest to Merck, which will use them for screening its compound libraries | Merck also gained an option to sublicense from Norak a green fluorescent protein for use with Transfluor; Norak will receive undisclosed cash payments and will get access to certain Merck data from the screening (9/17) |
Orchid | PerkinElmer | Exercised option for Perkin- Elmer to develop and sell fluorescence-based single nucleotide polymorphism diagnostic assays based on Orchid's SNP-IT genotyping technology | Financial details were not disclosed; PerkinElmer gains exclusive rights to use Orchid's SNP-IT technology in fluorescence polarization-based reagent kits, software and instruments (7/9) |
Oxagen Ltd.* | Pfizer Inc. | Agreement to investigate the association of certain Pfizer-nominated genes with asthma | Oxagen will perform single nucleotide polymorphism identification and geno- typing of genes nominated by Pfizer with- in Oxagen's set of asthma samples with the aim of identifying SNPs associated with respiratory disease (8/6) |
Peptor Ltd.* | Aventis SA | Worldwide agreement granting Peptor exclusive rights to develop and commercialize Peptor's DiaPep277 drug for the treatment of autoimmune diabetes | Peptor will receive a first milestone payment of $15M with the signing of the deal (8/14**) |
Pharmagene | GlaxoSmithKline | Agreement to help Glaxo- SmithKline characterize the metabolism of a number of compounds in human tissues prior to their being taken into full clinical development | GSK will gain access to specific Pharmagene capabilities in compound validation, with an option to extend the scope of the agreement (7/24) |
Plexus Vaccine | GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals | Technology development agreement to explore structure-based rational vaccine design | Plexus will design chimeric miniproteins that identify and mimic the structural features of critical functional domains on target pathogenic proteins (7/22) |
Ribonomics | Medical & Biological Laboratories Co. Ltd. (Japan) | Collaboration to develop and commercialize clinical diagnostic and research products | The alliance combines MBL's product development and commercialization expertise with Ribonomics' target discovery process and systems biology data (9/16) |
Rigel Pharma- | Daiichi Pharmaceuticals | Drug discovery collaboration on protein degradation related to cancer | Daiichi will give Rigel an up-front payment, as well as research support and "standard" milestone payments; Rigel will receive royalties on any commercialized products, and it retained North American rights to co-develop and co-promote any resulting products (8/12) |
Santarus Inc.* | TAP Pharma- | Licensing agreement to develop a next-generation therapy for upper gastrointestinal diseases | TAP will pay Santarus an $8M initial fee, plus potential milestones of up to $100M if a product is successfully developed and marketed; Santarus also gets royalties; TAP gains the North American rights to manufacture and sell products resulting from the technology, while Santarus retains rights to use its intellectual property to develop and commercialize related products (7/9) |
SciTegic Inc.* | Pfizer Inc. | Multiyear global software license agreement for Pipeline Pilot | The agreement provides Pfizer researchers with access to SciTegic's Pipeline Pilot for informatics analyses (7/10) |
Scynexis Inc.* | Merck & Co. | Multiyear agreement to discover and develop anti-infective compounds | Scynexis will use its Medchem-Factory technology to identify drugs against Merck's screening targets; Merck gains exclusive rights to any products that result from the collaboration, while Scynexis has the potential to receive milestone payments and royalties (6/26) |
Serono SA (Switzerland; NYSE:SRA) | AstraZeneca | Exclusive worldwide agreement giving Serono the rights to develop, register and market the aromatase inhibitor, anastrozole, in ovulation induction and improvement of follicular development | Serono will conduct a development program for anastrozole; AstraZeneca will manufacture and supply anastrozole; financial details were not disclosed (7/23) |
StressGen Biotechnologies Corp. (Canada; TSE:SSB) | F. Hoffmann- | Exclusive, worldwide agreement giving Roche rights to market and sell HspE7, a drug being developed to treat human papillomavirus | Roche gets exclusive, worldwide rights to market and sell the drug; the deal is worth $204M, which includes milestone payments, a $5M equity investment and an up-front payment (6/24) |
Structural GenomiX Inc.* | Asahi Kasei Corp. | Collaboration to use SGX's structure-guided drug discovery technologies to identify lead compounds against a cardiovascular target | SGX will use computational chemistry and rapid co-crystallization of the target with compounds from both Asahi and SGX to identify lead compounds for optimization and subsequent clinical development; SGX will receive payments for research funding and potentially milestone and royalty payments (7/15) |
SurroMed | Eli Lilly and Co. | Biomarker discovery collaboration in which Lilly supplies preclinical samples; SurroMed will use its integrated mass spectrometry-based platform for proteomic and small organic molecule analysis in order to identify biomarkers of disease | Financial terms were not disclosed (9/3) |
Symyx Technologies Inc. (SMMX) | Bayer AG | Multiyear patent licensing agreement in which Bayer can practice certain Symyx combinatorial research methodologies covered under certain Symyx patents | Symyx will receive undisclosed annual payments during the term of the license (7/24) |
Synaptic Pharmaceutical Corp. (SNAP) | Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals | Exclusive licensing agreement for a patent on two alpha-2 adrenergic receptor compounds | P&G will pay an up-front licensing fee plus milestones and royalties if a product is commercialized (7/10) |
The Cyptrotex Group* (UK) | F. Hoffmann- | Agreement to provide drug discovery support | Cyprotex will provide experimental services to enable Roche scientists to evaluate and optimize the absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination properties of potential drug candidates early in the drug discovery process (7/10) |
Therion Biologics Corp.* | Boehringer | Nonexclusive license agreement for the use of ICAM-1, or intercellular adhesion molecule-1, in Therion's vaccines | Therion will pay an undisclosed licensing fee and potential milestones and royalties (9/17) |
Tripos Inc. | Merck & Co. | Agreement in which Merck implemented Tripos' Meta-Layer technology to integrate chemical and biological drug discovery data | Merck will use the system to query, view and analyze research data without being required to reformat or re-engineer data-gathering methodology; financial terms were not disclosed (7/24) |
Xenogen | AstraZeneca plc | Three-year commercial licensing agreement to use Xenogen technology for drug discovery and development programs in oncology | Xenogen's technology is used to monitor cancerous cells that have been tagged with a light-emitting gene that allows real-time data to be captured using its IVIS camera system (8/8) |
ZymoGenetics | Wyeth | Licensing agreement for a pair of patent applications related to the interleukin-13 receptor subunit, or IL-13R alpha2 | Wyeth paid an undisclosed assignment fee to ZymoGenetics for the two patent applications (7/29) |
Zyomyx Inc.* | GlaxoSmithKline | Agreement in which Glaxo- SmithKline purchased Zyomyx's Protein Profiling Biochip System human cytokine biochips and subsequent protein biochips | The system and chips are designed toenable researchers to profile the expression of 30 cytokines in human serum samples simultaneously (8/16) |
| | |||
Notes: | |||
# The information in the chart does not cover agricultural agreements or those between biotech companies. Some items occurred before June 20 but were 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. | |||
AMEX = American Stock Exchange; ASX = Australian Stock Exchange; CSE = Copenhagen Stock Exchange; LSE = London Stock Exchange; NYSE = New York Stock Exchange; OTC BB = Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board; TSE = Toronto Stock Exchange | |||
