Ilex Expects Drug Pact Soon, Buys Research Firm for $11 Mln
Ilex Expects Drug Pact Soon, Buys Research Firm for $11 Mln
San Antonio, Texas, July 19 (Bloomberg) -- Ilex Oncology Inc., a biotech company, said it expects to enter a partnership with a drugmaker within weeks for what could be its first drug, the experimental leukemia medicine Campath.
Ilex, which doesn't have any approved drugs or profits, also said it bought closely held Convergence Pharmaceuticals Inc. for about $11 million in stock and assumed debt. The purchase adds experimental drugs that target a tumor's ability to grow blood vessels to Ilex's own cancer research, its primary focus.
Ilex said it expects to file by year end for U.S. approval of Campath to treat a form of leukemia that affects 60,000 Americans. If it's approved, Ilex could turn a profit in 2001, Chief Executive Richard Love said. Ilex is in talks to find a marketing partner for Campath, he said. ''We're in very advanced discussions with several pharmaceutical companies,'' Love said.
San Antonio, Texas-based Ilex developed Campath with LeukoSite Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech company.
Like many biotechs, Ilex is spending more than it takes in while it attempts to get an approved drug on the market. In the first quarter, Ilex lost $4.5 million, or 35 cents a share, on revenue of $3.4 million.
Even so, Ilex doesn't anticipate running low on cash soon, Love said. It recently secured about $20 million in private financing, bring its reserve of cash and securities to about $40 million, Love said.
Still, Ilex would be open to looking at a merger with another biotech company, though it's not in any such talks now, Love said. Ilex also could make another purchase such as its Convergence buy, Love said. ''We're continuing to look at opportunities,'' he said.
Angiogenesis Research
In the most recent transaction, the owners of Convergence received 1 million shares of Ilex, which rose 1/16 to 9 15/16 on Friday. Ilex also will assume $1 million in Convergence's debt, Love said. If certain deadlines are met in development of Convergence's drugs, the company's former owners could get additional payments of as much as 1 million in Ilex shares.
Boston-based Convergence was founded by Harvard Medical School faculty members Vikas Sukhatme and Raghu Kalluri. Both also are researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Like their Harvard colleague Judah Folkman, the pair have looked at how tumors establish a blood supply, a process known as angiogenesis. Folkman's work was profiled in a New York Times article in May 1998, raising expectations about a new direction in cancer treatment.
Although Folkman's work has had positive results in mice, not even the most basic test of anti-angiogenesis drugs has been completed in human yet. |
