By Chris Delporte

Exelixis Inc. expanded the scope of its pharmaceutical development and research with the addition of metabolic diseases to its cancer and angiogenesis franchise areas.

¿We can¿t be only a cancer company anymore,¿ George Scangos, Exelixis¿ CEO, told BioWorld Today. ¿Metabolism is such an interesting area for us.¿

The company¿s new program will focus on therapies for cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes. Scangos said the continued growth of the company¿s drug discovery efforts in cancer and angiogenesis encouraged South San Francisco-based Exelixis to pursue a new therapeutic market opportunity.

¿Now we have three aggressive pharmaceutical programs,¿ he said. ¿Until now, our focus internally has been our cancer program, which has achieved technical and commercial success. We also have an angiogenesis program that¿s quite mature, so the challenge for us was where to go next.¿

Scangos said that metabolic disease research and development represents additional opportunities for technical, financial and medical success, predicting that the program would reach the same quality as the company¿s cancer endeavors.

A key component of Exelixis¿ new drug discovery program is the conclusion of its sponsored research program with Pharmacia Corp., of Peapack, N.J.

In February 1999, Pharmacia and Exelixis began collaborating on the identification of targets for small-molecule therapeutics in the areas of Alzheimer¿s disease, Type II diabetes and associated complications of metabolic syndrome, including obesity and certain categories of cardiovascular disease. Exelixis has delivered more than a dozen novel drug targets to Pharmacia since the beginning of the collaboration.

Under the terms of the original five-year agreement, Exelixis received a license fee and ongoing research and milestone payments based on target selection. Pharmacia purchased roughly 2.3 million shares of Exelixis stock for $15 million. The deal included a window at two and a half years, at which each company could decide if it wanted to pursue the rest of the collaboration. The program will come to an end in February 2002.

Pharmacia will retain exclusive rights to pursue targets selected prior to February 2002, subject to the payment of milestones to Exelixis. After February of next year, Exelixis will have the exclusive right to pursue all other targets it identifies in this field, and Pharmacia will have no funding obligations to Exelixis, except for royalties, after that date.

¿Though we¿ll continue to work with Pharmacia through February, we¿ll also continue to work outside of that collaboration,¿ Scangos said. ¿It has been a good collaboration ¿ nothing negative ¿ but we are a very different company than we were three years ago. Our systems are different and our goals are different. Pharmacia has been through a few mergers and there are new people there, so they¿re a different company, too. This was a mutual and amicable decision. Between the two programs, we have a world-class program already up and running.¿

Scangos said the company now has the opportunity to explore and establish multiple relationships that have the same characteristics as its cancer program. Exelixis recently entered an agreement with Protein Design Labs Inc., of Fremont, Calif., to develop antibodies for cancer diagnosis and treatment. The company¿s recent $200 million collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., of Princeton, N.J., is focused on the identification of molecular targets that kill cancer cells. (See BioWorld Today, May 24, 2001, and July 19, 2001.)

¿Protein Design Labs and Bristol-Myers have been great partners,¿ he said. ¿We can do the same thing with metabolism.¿

Scangos said it¿s now time to bring the company¿s powerful and integrated technology platform to work in metabolism-disease targets.

¿The goal is not to identify disease-associated genes because you don¿t know if those genes have to do with cause or effect,¿ he said. ¿What¿s really important are the genes you can target that will have an impact on the disease process. We¿ve been able to find such genes in cancer and angiogenesis, and they are unique and highly validated.¿

In addition to its internal modeling systems, as part of the metabolism program, the company will make use of the zebrafish and mouse genetic systems at Artemis Pharmaceuticals GmbH, of Cologne, Germany, which Exelixis recently acquired. (See BioWorld Today, April 24, 2001.)

¿We have 18 targets that have come out of research, and we have 1.3 million carefully selected compounds in our library,¿ he said. ¿Our goal is to hit 2 million compounds by the end of this year. We expect our first IND [investigational new drug application] to be filed next year, and hope for two per year after that. We have the same expectation for metabolism.¿

Exelixis currently has 100 employees engaged in drug discovery. Its stock (NASDAQ:EXEL) gained 26 cents Friday to close at $18.60.