ChemoCentryx’s $1.5 billion: Are you in the wrong business?

August 25, 2006 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |
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An obscure Mountain View biotechnology company named ChemoCentryx, which makes drugs for bowel and other inflammatory disorders, has signed a deal worth $1.5 billion with GlaxoSmithKline to develop its products for the drug giant.

Don’t know how long this relative success of biotech and life-sciences will last, but this is just another reminder of the question we asked a couple of weeks ago: “Are you in the wrong business?”

It’s the second biggest drug-development pact ever between a pharmaceutical firm and biotech company, and the largest deal in California. The company has to meet certain milestones to get the full $1.5 billion.

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Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • David
    Obscure? Really? Just 'cause you haven't heard of them? They're pretty well known within their sector.
  • Point taken. I was using the wording from my colleague at the Merc, Steve Johnson, who covers biotech. So figured if *he* called it obscure, then I certainly could....
  • GSK is also partnering with ADHEREX, another lesser known firm in development of pharma compounds, but for cancer. Adherex's primary thrust began in application of Cadherins - cell adhesion mediating compounds, that have been put to use in providing a safe means to selectively destroy soft tissue tumors - tumors marked by n-cadherin. ADH-1 (formerly called Exherin), melts n-cadherin marked tummor vasculature - safely and in 30 minutes, with no toxicity and perfect selectivity, plus completely and safely metabolized in 4 hours. FDA P1 showed no upper dose limit to toxicity onset - you can safely drink the stuff of ADH-1. Thrust will move to combo ADH-1 therapies which have shown hints of unusual promise in destruction of melanoma among other tumors.

    Adherex's second play is to take the common 5FU IV chemotherapy and make it orally administerable, patentable and increased effectiveness over common IV 5FU.

    Present work by Adherex is covered by a development agreements with GSK for the past 18+ months.

    Adherex is the leader in Cadherin related pharma with an issued patent portfolio of 40+ patents and another 40 filed. Lead by a brilliant Dr. William Peters, and founded by Prof. Orest Balschuk of McGill University in Montreal.

    Notable among the large IP portfolio of Adherex, is a cadherin strategy for dealing with tumor metastases - by cadherin bioengineering, where most cancer deaths occur by tumor metastases, and not by primary tumors.

    more on the new Adherex here
    http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=9153690

    and here
    http://mark-nano.blogspot.com/2005/12/cadherins-and-looming-revolution-in.html
    and here
    http://mark-nano.blogspot.com/2006/02/article-on-genesis-of-adherex.html
    and here
    http://mark-nano.blogspot.com/2006/03/adherex-receives-regulatory-approval.htm