Biotech Co.* | Pharma Co. | Type/Product Area | Terms/Details (Date) |
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20/20 Gene- | Novartis AG (Switzerland) | Technology access agreement in which Novartis gains access to 20/20's Protein Function Identification Layered Membranes to identify protein expression and activation patterns in tumor samples | Novartis will provide funding and tissue samples (10/9) |
4SC AG* | Schering AG | Research collaboration to identify molecules that bind to a specific undisclosed target provided by Schering to serve as the basis for drug discovery | 4SC will use its 4SCan high-throughput screening technology to evaluate a pool of 3.3M small organic molecules for their binding efficacy to the given target; 4SC will receive undisclosed research funding and milestone payments (10/8) |
Aegera | Wyeth | Nonexclusive license granting Wyeth access to Aegera's adenovirus technology | The license also grants Wyeth the right to practice the adenovirus transfection method; the agreement calls for an undisclosed up-front payment and annual main- tenance fees to Aegera (10/1) |
Affymetrix Inc. | Schering-Plough Research Institute | Agreement under whichSPRI gains access to Affymetrix's standard and custom GeneChip arrays, instrumentation and software | They will be used to monitor gene expression for use in biopharmaceutical research and development activities (10/22) |
Amersham Biosciences (unit of Amersham plc; | Pharmacia Corp. and Novartis Pharma AG (Switzerland) | Licensing agreements enablingthe companies to use Amersham's green fluorescent protein vectors in their drug discovery research | The license includes access to intellectual property associated with folding and red-shifted mutations (9/19) |
Amylin | Eli Lilly and Co. | Global agreement to collaborate on the development and commercialization of Amylin's late-stage Type II diabetes candidate, AC2993 | The deal could mean more than $435M for the biotech company, including up-front, equity and milestone payments (9/20) |
Arena | Merck & Co. | Collaboration to validate three orphan GPCRs of interest | Merck paid $4M up front, and will pay $10M more in milestone payments in the next 12 months; Arena also is entitled to royalties; Arena will deploy its receptor technologies known as CART and Melanophore (10/17) |
Astex | Mitsubishi Pharma | Collaboration in the area of metabolic disorders | Collaboration will identify lead compounds against a protein target; they will then be extended to other targets; Astex will apply its high-throughput X-ray crystallography and Pyramid approach to fragment-based drug discovery against the target (10/21) |
Atrix | Sanofi- | Licensing agreement for an extended-release Eligard | Atrix licensed the formulation from Sanofi; Atrix will receive research and development reimbrusement and payments for regulatory and sales milestones, as well as royalties on sales; it also will manufacture Eligard (10/1) |
Biolex Inc.* | Bayer Corp. | Research collaboration anddevelopment option agreement to examine the feasibility of producing human plasminogen and an additionalundisclosed human therapeutic protein | The companies will use Biolex's patented Lemna System (10/3) |
Biosynexus* | GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals (UK) | Agreement for the development of vaccines and antibodies designed to fight infections caused by staphylococcal bacteria | Biosynexus' product, BSYX-A110, a monoclonal antibody to prevent staphylococcal infections, is included in the agreement; each company will share the costs of developing BSYX-A110; the deal is worth up to $120M through access fees, equity investments and milestone payments to Biosynexus (10/2) |
Biovitrum AB* | GlaxoSmithKline | Agreement to develop Biovitrum's 5-HT2C receptor agonists to treat obesity | The deal is worth a potential $150M for Biovitrum; it could mean more money if products are developed in other indications; GlaxoSmithKline will pay Biovitrum an up-front fee and milestone payments (10/23) |
Cambridge | Chugai Pharmaceutical | Agreement to license CAT's antibody phage-display libraries for the discovery, development and commercialization of human monoclonal antibodies | CAT will receive license fees from Chugai to use the antibody libraries for reagent generation and target validation; Chugai will receive exclusive therapeutic antibody product options and CAT will receive fees, clinical milestones and royalty payments on product sales (9/30) |
Celera | Bristol-Myers | Collaboration to study genes that may be useful in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease and diabetes | BMS will provide clinical samples and data to Celera, and it will receive exclusive rights to develop and market resulting drugs; Celera will retain exclusive rights to develop and market diagnostic products (10/7) |
Celera | Bayer AG | Agreement in which Celera acquired a collection of early compounds from Bayer | Celera inherited the agreement when it acquired Axys Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2001; the new deal gives Celera an entire set of compounds and intellectual property, and the rights to the compounds in all fields (10/8) |
Cellular | Serono SA (Switzerland) | Collaboration for CellularGenomics to apply its chemical genetics technologies to four target kinases selected by Serono | Cellular Genomics will receive up-front payments and milestones over two years; the kinases are important in small-molecule drug discovery programs for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases (10/9) |
Cerep SA* | F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. (Switzerland) | Research agreement providing for Roche to have access to Cerep's database, BioPrint, and for Cerep to use its BioPrint informatics tools on behalf of Roche | Cerep will profile Roche compounds in a panel of in vitro biological assays (10/9**) |
ChemCodes | Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. | Research agreement under which ChemCodes will use its chemistry platform todiscover and optimize synthetic reactions to produce lead compounds for a Roche target | Financial terms were not disclosed (10/15) |
DeCode | Merck & Co. | Agreement to develop a treatment for obesity | DeCode will receive research funding, technology access and license fees, and milestone and royalty payments on successfully marketed alliance drugs; the deal is worth more than $90M for DeCode (9/27) |
Encelle Inc.* | Smith & Nephew | Agreement to conduct the next phase of clinical trials of Encelle's first product, E-Matrix, for use in treating chronic wounds | Smith & Nephew will fund the trial and gain exclusive licensing rights to further develop and commercialize E-Matrix for skin wounds in humans (9/23) |
Endovasc Ltd. | NOF Corp. | Three-year license agreement containing automatic renewals in which NOF will represent Endovasc in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and India | The parties also will collaborate on re- search and development by using NOF's lipid drug delivery systems to develop new products (10/9) |
GeneData Inc.* | Wyeth | Licensing agreement to use GeneData's GeneData Phylosopher, its system for comparative functional genomics | Wyeth will use the system to analyze the genomes of pharmaceutically relevant pathogens by comparing them with all of the currently available and completely sequenced genomes from microbial and higher organisms (10/16) |
Hydra | Abbott | Collaboration to continue animal studies to validate a therapy for proliferative vascular disease, and to focus on a small-molecule drug discovery program in an undisclosed disease area | The collaboration will provide multiyear funding for Hydra, including up-front payments, as well as potential milestone and royalty payments (10/9) |
Igeneon AG* | Novartis AG | Licensing agreement for Novartis' IGN301 vaccine against epithelial cancers | Igeneon gains exclusive worldwide rights for clinical development and exploitation of the vaccine; Novartis gains an up-front fee, and could receive milestone payments and licensing fees on future sales (10/2) |
Illumina Inc. | GlaxoSmithKline | Genotyping services agreement to develop a set of single nucleotide polymor phism markers into validated SNP assays | Illumina will develop the assays into a whole-genome linkage disequilibrium-mapping product (9/19) |
Insmed Inc. | Pharmacia | Exclusive licensing agreementgiving Insmed access to Pharmacia's portfolio of regulatory filings pertaining to insulin-like growth factor-1 to treat growth hormone insensitivity | Insmed plans to use the information to expedite the development and approval of SomatoKine (10/7) |
Kosan | F. Hoffmann- | Agreement partnering the early stage cancer product, KOS-862 | Roche will have worldwide exclusive rights to KOS-862, although Kosan retains co-development and co-promotion rights in the U.S.; total committed funding and all milestones could reach as high as $220M (9/23) |
Matritech Inc. | Mitsubishi | Agreement in which Matri- tech will complete the development of the NMP66 breast cancer test | Matritech will use Mitsubishi's input and conduct an initial validation study using specimens from women in Japan provided by Mitsubishi (10/11) |
Mologen AG* | Undisclosed U.S. pharmaceutical company | Agreement for a feasibility study on a veterinary vaccine based on Mologen's MIDGE vector technology | Mologen believes the vector is suitable for delivering vaccines in both humans and animals (9/18**) |
Neose | Novo Nordisk | Research and development collaboration for the use of Neose's GlycoAdvance technology to make clinically significant improvements to a Novo Nordisk therapeutic protein | Financial terms were not disclosed (10/2) |
NicOx SA | AstraZeneca | Agreement giving Astra-Zeneca rights to develop and commercialize AZD 3582 and certain other COX-inhibiting nitric oxide-donators in Japan | NicOx will receive milestone payments totaling up to €22M (US$21.5M); NicOx also will receive an up-front payment and royalties of 12% on net sales of compounds concerned in Japan (9/30) |
Norak | F. Hoffmann- | Nonexclusive agreement to use Norak's Transfluor technology for G protein-coupled receptor drug discovery | Norak will provide its Transfluor cell lines expressing GPCR targets of interest to Roche; Norak also will sublicense a green fluorescent protein to Roche for use with Transfluor; Norak will receive up-front cash, assay development fees and could receive milestone payments (10/1) |
Novactyl Inc.* | Upsher-Smith Laboratories | Worldwide exclusive licensing agreement for PCL-016 and FSR-488 to treat cold sores and genital herpes | Novactyl will receive an up-front licensing fee, reimbursement for certain expenses, additional milestone payments and royal- ties; Upsher-Smith gains exclusive development and marketing rights on a worldwide basis for both compounds (10/1) |
Perlegen | GlaxoSmithKline | Collaboration to use whole-genome single nucleotide polymorphism scanning to identify genetic markers of drug response | The goal is to identify in a limited number of patients a pattern of markers that may be associated with a pharmacogenomic response (9/18) |
Pharmacopeia | Kowa Co. Ltd. | Collaboration focused on inflammation | Pharmacopeia will provide its small- molecule discovery knowledge to identify leads against a Kowa target; Pharmacopeia will receive funding and could receive payments for milestones and royalties on approved drugs (10/23) |
Pharmagene | Boehringer | Contract agreement giving Boehringer access to Pharmagene's Phase ZERO compound validation service | Pharmagene will evaluate a number of ringer's compounds in human cerebrovascular tissues (9/25**) |
Pharmagenesis | Fujisawa Pharmaceutical | Research collaboration related to immunosuppressants based on Chinese herbal remedies being developed | The immunosuppressants are triptolide derivatives; Fujisawa has the option for the next year to make the decision to acquire exclusive, worldwide development and marketing rights to the compounds (9/24) |
Pharsight Corp. | Sanofi- | Agreement in which Pharsight will implement the Pharsight Knowledgebase Server and upgrade related modeling software in its drug development efforts | Financial details were not disclosed (9/26) |
Sequenom Inc. | GlaxoSmithKline | Agreement in which Sequenom sold two additional MassArray systems to GlaxoSmithKline | The sales follow an initial MassArray system purchase by GSK earlier this year (10/17) |
SIGA | TransTech | Drug discovery collaboration using TransTech's TTP Translational Technology and SIGA's biological targets to seek small-molecule therapeutics to treat infectious diseases and neutralization of potential biowarfare agents | Companies will focus on discovering classes of anti-infectives to treat infectious diseases; they will share costs and any generated revenues (10/3) |
Symyx Technologies | Kurt J. Lesker | Worldwide, nonexclusive license agreement for selected Symyx patents and technology that may enhance the performance and capabilities of KJLC's CMS-A and CMS-18 thin-film deposition tools | KJLC will develop, manufacture and distribute the instruments worldwide, with Symyx receiving royalty payments on product sales (9/19) |
Variagenics | Strida Pharma | Option agreement for a worldwide license to certain of Variagenics' MTHFR (methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase) patent rights | Variagenics granted Strida the option for worldwide exclusive rights to commercialize therapeutic inhibitors of the MTHFR gene; terms include an up-front fee and may lead to milestone payments and royalties on sales of any compounds that are developed using the technology (10/16) |
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Notes: | |||
# The information in the chart does not cover agricultural agreements or those between biotech companies. | |||
* 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. | |||
LSE = London Stock Exchange; NYSE = New York Stock Exchange; OTC BB = Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board | |||
