Biotech Company** (Country) |
Agribusiness Partner (Symbol/Country) |
Type/Product Area |
Amt. ($M) | Terms/Details (Month) |
3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals Inc.* |
Hoechst Schering AgrEvo GmbH1 (Germany) |
Research collaboration/use of 3D's compound libraries and DirectedDiversity optimization technology to discover and refine new agrochemicals |
ND |
AgrEvo has exclusive rights to commercialize agricultural products discovered during the collaboration; 3D retains rights for non-agrochemical uses of compounds developed through the collaboration (10/99) |
BIOTICA Technology Ltd.* (UK) | Dow AgroSciences LLC (wholly owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Co.; NYSE: DOW) | Research collaboration/additional uses of spinosad insect control product | ND |
Two-year agreement under which BIOTICA will determine the potential for obtaining new variants of spinosad by targeted changes of the biosynthetic pathway that creates the product; financial terms ND (12/99) |
Cambridge Discovery Chemistry (wholly owned subsidiary of Oxford Molecular Group plc; UK) |
Zeneca Agrochemicals (unit of AstraZeneca plc; UK; NYSE: AZN) |
Research and development (R&D) collaboration/chemistry services |
ND | Cambridge will take over responsibility for Zeneca's chemistry research facility in Richmond, Calif.; Zeneca will fund research for a defined period, and Cambridge will be able to expand facilities to accommodate growth and new programs (12/99) |
Caprion Pharmaceuticals Inc.* (Canada) |
IDEXX Laboratories | R&D collaboration/reagents for the diagnosis of Mad Cow Disease and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies |
ND | IDEXX will receive exclusive global rights for veterinary applications in diagnostics and therapeutics, while Caprion retains rights to human diagnostic and therapeutic applications (8/99) |
Cell Genesys Inc. | Pharmacia & Upjohn (NYSE: PNU) |
Research collaboration/application of Cell Genesys' gene delivery technology to animal health |
ND | Cell Genesys will provide its adenoviral and adeno-associated viral gene delivery technologies to P&U to evalute applications of gene therapy in animal health; companies will consider further business relationship based on results of these studies (9/99) |
Diversa Corp.* |
Novartis Seeds (unit of Novartis AG; Switzerland) | Joint venture/animal feeds and agricultural food processing |
61.6 |
Novartis Seeds will form a new company to work with Diversa; companies will seek to discover and optimize new enzymes, which the venture will market for use in animal feed additives and formulations; Novartis Seeds will also develop enhanced crops bearing genes identified by the joint venture; Diversa will receive $15M initially; $5M in mid-2000; minimum research funding of $33.9M; milestones of up to $7.7M plus royalties and license commercialization fees on products (12/99) |
Rhone-Poulenc Animal Nutrition (unit of Rhone-Poulenc SA; France; NYSE: RP) |
Research collaboration/discovery and development of enzymes that can be used for biotransformation as an alternative to chemical synthesis |
ND |
RPAN will receive an option for exclusive worldwide rights to the targeted enzymes (8/99) | |
Genencor International Inc. (joint venture between Eastman Chemical Co. [NYSE: EMN] and Cultor Ltd. [Finland]) | Eastman Chemical Co., (NYSE:EMN) Electrosynthesis Co.*; MicroGenomics Inc.*; Argonne National Laboratory (U.S. Energy Department); and the U.S. Department of Commerce Advanced Technology Program |
Commercialization/process for making ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) from glucose | ND | Eastman will market enzymatic process whose development was jointly financed by a five-company consortium and the U.S. Department of Commerce's Advanced Technology Program (8/99) |
GENSEL Biotechnologies Ltd.* (Canada) |
Monsanto Co. (NYSE:MTC) |
Research collaboration with licensing option/sperm sexing technology to enable livestock producers to pre-select gender of offspring |
ND | Monsanto's Animal Agriculture Group is assisting with R&D, particularly with protein chemistry and molecular biology, and also with patenting; in return, Monsanto has an exclusive option for the technology for use in cattle in the U.S. and Mexico (5/99) |
Genzyme Molecular Oncology |
Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute Inc. (affilate of Novartis AG; Switzerland) |
Technology license/use of GMO's SAGE (Serial Analysis of Gene Expression) |
ND | The institute licensed SAGE for use in research on plant growth and diseases; license is for a defined term and may be extended at the option of Novartis (7/99) |
Genzyme Molecular Oncology | Monsanto Co. (NYSE:MTC) |
Research collaboration/use of GMO's SAGE (Serial Analysis of Gene Expression) |
ND | GMO and Monsanto are collaborating on a project in which Genzyme will be using SAGE to construct libraries from plant samples supplied by Monsanto (7/99) |
Montana State University [Daniel Bergey] | Academic collaboration/use of GMO'S SAGE (Serial Analysis of Gene Expression) | ND | Bergey will use information from SAGE to identify and characterize the genetic regulation of the plant "wound" hormone, systemim, which initiates a signaling cascade similar to the inflammatory process in animal cells (7/99) | |
Hyseq Inc. |
American Cyanamid Co. (subsidiary of American Home Products Corp.; NYSE:AHP) | Research collaboration/use of Hyseq's technology to discover genes and develop gene products for use in crop protection and production, and for use as nutraceuticals, human and animal foodstuffs, industrial products and chemical intermediates, as well as plant-based production of pharmaceuticals |
60 | Hyseq will receive $60M in revenues over a 3.5-year period and royalties on products derived from the exclusive collaboration with American Cyanamid in agriculture; companies retain non-exclusive right to use the results and technologies developed in the collaboration for applications outside of agriculture, and both will receive royalties (12/99) |
Integrated Genomics Inc.* | Cargill Inc.* |
Research collaboration and technology license/sequencing and analysis of genomes of of microbial strains; access to Integrated Genomics' bioinformatics tools |
ND |
Integrated Genomics will sequence and analyze genomes of microbial strains of interest to Cargill, which will also license Integrated Genomics' bioinformatics tools, including the WIT ProTM genome analysis suite and biochemical and genomic databases (7/99) |
Lynx Therapeutics Inc. |
Hoechst Schering AgrEvo GmbH (Germany)1 | Research collaboration/use of Lynx's genetic analysis technologies for the study of certain plants with the aim of developing new crop varieties |
25 | AgrEvo will receive access to Lynx's DNA analysis technologies; over the term of the agreement, Lynx could receive more than $25M for the performance of various DNA analyses, the delivery of genomic maps of certain plants, and milestone payments and licensing fees related to the discovery of single nucleotide polymorphisms for the subject plants (10/99) |
Maxygen Inc. | Zeneca Agrochemicals (unit of AstraZeneca plc; UK) |
Agricultural collaboration focused on pest and disease control, and quality, nutritional and productivity improvements | 125 | Five-year collaboration under which Zeneca receives worldwide research and commercialization rights; Maxygen receives a $5M equity investment, together with more than $20M in research and development funding and licensing fees; Maxygen could also potentially receive more than $100M in milestones, plus royalties (8/99) |
Myriad Genetics Inc. |
Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute Inc. (affiliate of Novartis AG; Switzerland) |
Cereal crop genomics |
33.5 | Two-year collaboration under which Myriad receives $33.5M in up-front payments and research funding; upon completion of the project, Myriad and NADI will jointly offer commercial access to the genomic databases and share equally in any resulting proceeds (9/99) |
Orion Genomics LLC* | Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory | CSHL's methyl filtration technology, a method for rapid and economical sequencing of large, complex genomes, especially those of plants | ND |
Orion obtained exclusive, worldwide rights for all fields of use (11/99) |
RhoBio SA (France; joint venture of Rhone Poulenc SA [NYSE: RP; France] and Biogemma SAS* [France]) |
CSIRO (Australia's national research organization) | CSIRO's pPlex, a set of DNA switches, which enable expression of genes carrying desired plant traits |
ND |
RhoBio gains intellectual world-rights to technology; CSIRO retains usage rights in Australia (9/99) |
NOTES: | ||||
1 AgrEvo has since become part of Aventis CropScience through the merger of Hoechst AG and Rhone-Poulenc SA (see agribusiness mergers chart on page XX.) | ||||
ND = Not disclosed, reported and/or available; NYSE = New York Stock Exchange | ||||
* Private companies are indicated with an asterisk. | ||||
** Unless otherwise noted, the trading symbols for public biotechnology companies can be found by referring to the BioWorld Stock Report For Public Biotechnology Companies on pp. 15-16. | ||||
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