The story of Australian firm Bionomics Ltd.'s recent A$14.25 million (US$15.1 million) fundraising offers a good example of how a company can capitalize on strong – even if early stage – data.
The licensing deal that spurred a hostile takeover attempt by disgruntled shareholders at Cypress Bioscience Inc. – and eventually led to this year's buyout of the San Diego-based firm by Ramius LLC and Royalty Partners – has come to an end.
A mere four and a half years after launching clinical development, Plexxikon Inc. filed marketing applications in the U.S. and Europe for its targeted melanoma drug PLX4032, now known as vemurafenib.
Allos Therapeutics Inc. picked up $50 million in up-front cash in a much-anticipated ex-U.S. deal for peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) drug Folotyn (pralatrexate) and hopes the co-development and commercialization muscle of Mundipharma International Corp. Ltd. will help Folotyn capture a large portion of second-line PTCL market outside the U.S., estimated at about $400 million.
SAN FRANCISCO – It's impossible to imagine the biotech space without monoclonal antibodies. A recent report by Deloitte Recap LLC showed that about a third of marketed mAbs in 2009 hit blockbuster status, and experts are predicting that in a few years, the top-selling drugs will be Roche AG's Avastin (bevacizumab) and Abbott's Humira (adalimumab).
SAN FRANCISCO – Burrill & Co. reported last month that the past decade of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity by major pharmaceutical firms has failed to build value, suggesting that the drug development industry might be wasting its time on acquisitions.
SAN FRANCISCO – Chatter in the biotech-sphere over the past year has centered on the current economic environment, health care pricing pressure and the fallout from large-scale acquisitions, all of which have converged to make business development a challenging mission, to say the least.
With venture capital getting hard to come by and the arrival of big pharma's dreaded patent cliff, "it seems like a perfect storm" for a burst of licensing and collaboration activity for the biotech sector, said Hemmie Chang, of Foley Hoag LLP's licensing & strategic alliance practice group.
