Merger mania
Amgen buys Kinetix Pharmaceuticals; Corixa antes up for Coulter Pharmaceutical
Biotech giant Amgen (Woodland Hills, CA) has agreed to buy privately held Kinetix Pharmaceuticals (Medford, MA) for $170 million, while Corixa (Seattle) will purchase Coulter Pharmaceuticals (South San Francisco, CA) for somewhere between $800 and $900 million in stock.
The acquisition of Kinetix will provide Amgen with expertise in small molecule drug discovery, particularly for protein kinases. The Kinetix technology will bolster Amgen's in-house rational drug design expertise with a discovery engine that can rapidly produce and optimize high-quality lead compounds. The acquisition also complements Amgen's strengths in discovery biology, pre-clinical development, and clinical development, and integrates both companies' strong programs in cancer/oncology and inflammation.
"Kinetix is one of the real innovators in the emerging field of protein kinase inhibition,'' said Kevin Sharer, president and CEO. "We have made great strides with our existing small molecule program, and acquiring the Kinetix technology will advance our small molecule program. The addition of the Kinetix team, including president and CEO Nick Lydon, Ph.D., and David Armistead, Ph.D., vice president of research and development and chief scientific officer, will further strengthen our program."
Corixa and Coulter, on the other hand, illustrate a different principle—fill the pipeline and bring in the salespersons. Corixa gets Coulter's Bexxar, cancer drug expected to hit the market in 2001, and the technology behind it. Bexxar represents the next generation of immunotherapeutics—it's a monoclonal antibody linked to a radioactive isotope. The idea is to deliver the radioactive bullet via the protein to cancerous cells alone, reducing harm to the rest of the body. Corixa also gains Coulter's sales force.
And Coulter gets Corixa's rich drug development pipeline with many products in preclinical and clinical trials, filling in behind Bexxar and protecting Coulter should the FDA deny its application to market the drug. Despite gaining the radioactive isotope/monoclonal antibody technology, Corixa does face the risk of Bexxar disapproval, but in that event, the agreement lets Corixa out of the deal in exchange for a $15 million loan to Coulter.
Steven Gillis, who will remain as chairman and CEO of the combined company, said of the merger, "Coulter's ability to enhance the power of monoclonal antibodies with either cytotoxic drugs or radionuclides broadens the therapeutic potential of multiple antibody-based products in the combined company's pipeline. The presence of a dedicated sales force at Coulter provides a strategic asset to the combined company that can be readily leveraged to bring additional products to the marketplace. We are excited by the strength and breadth of the combined company's talents, platform technologies and pipeline and look forward to our future together."
Edited by Laura DeFrancesco
Managing Editor, Bioresearch Online
Email: ldefrancesco@bioresearchonline.com