Biotech Analysis

Medarex, Mass Biologic License Antibodies to Merck in Deal Worth up to $225M

A combination of monoclonal antibodies co-developed by Medarex Inc. and Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories have been licensed to drug giant Merck & Co. Inc. in a deal worth up to $225M. Medarex and Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories will split equally a $60 million up-front payment and an additional $165 million in cash for certain milestones. Merck gains worldwide rights to develop and commercialize CDA-1 and CDB-1, which had completed Phase II testing patients with the Clostridium difficile infection.

Biomarker Data at AACR: Another Step toward Personalized Medicine

Data presented this week at the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research pointed to the growing interest in personalizing oncology treatment decisions – and an increased ability to do so thanks to companion diagnostics and new biomarker data.

AACR: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed

The presentations at this year’s annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research could, at first blush, leave one wondering whether anything at all is new in cancer research. Plenary talk topics included more stalwarts than unknowns. But, some of the presenters argued, while the idea that cancer stem cells make good targets, and drug combinations or T cells good targeting agents, may not be new, methodological advances have allowed recent progress in bringing those ideas to fruition.

Sebelius Wins Finance Committee Approval for HHS Secretary

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius won approval today as Health and Human Services secretary from the Senate Finance Committee in a 15-to-8 vote. Her nomination now will go before the full Senate. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) raised concerns that Sebelius would attempt to use comparative effectiveness research to deny care. The vote was taken during a quick break at a Senate Finance Committee health reform roundtable on improving the quality and efficiency of care.

GSK Buys Stiefel Labs for $2.9B

Dermatology firm Stiefel Laboratories is being purchased by GlaxoSmithKline plc for $2.9 billion in cash. GSK also will take more than $400 million in debt and will pay up to $300 million more in cash depending on Stiefel meeting certain milestones. Stiefel makes Duac for acne and Olux E for dermatitis and had 2008 revenues of $1.5 billion.

Also in the News:

Access Pharmaceuticals, Actelion, Alkermes, Amylin, AngioChem, Applied Biosystems, Ardea Biosciences, Ariad, Arrayit, Avanir, Celera, Circassia, CTI, Dendreon, Expression Pathology, Galapagos, International Stem Cell, Isis, Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Lilly, Lpath, Materia, Opsona Therapeutics, Par Pharmaceutical, Peregrine, Qiagen, Reliant Pharmaceuticals, Roche NimbleGen, Sigma-Aldrich, Synta, Transposagen, Vectura