Praecis Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Experiencing major growing pains
Questions about cancer drug send stock price into deep spiral
For a young biotechnology firm, Praecis was firing on all cylinders last year.
In the space of nine months, the Waltham firm had raised $260 million in two
public stock offerings.
Collaborations with two major companies were bringing in revenues and moving
drug candidates closer to the market. And Praecis had just moved to a new
facility it had built in Waltham with the proceeds of its stock sales.
For the past year, though, there have been some strange noises coming from
under the hood.
Amgen Inc., of Thousand Oaks, Calif., and Sanofi-Synthelabo SA, of France,
both terminated their agreements to help develop Plenaxis, which is aimed at
prostate cancer in men and endometriosis in women. The terminations, effective
in December, took away Praecis's main source of revenue and the "Big Pharma"
endorsement that had sent Praecis stock to $43.625 in August 2000 -- and had
kept it above $25 for much of the first and second quarters last year.
Finally, the US Food and Drug Administration asked more questions about
Plenaxis in June that will require additional clinical trials.
Recently, Praecis was trading a little above $3. For the 12-month period
ended March 31, the shares were down almost 74 percent.
One hopeful sign: Praecis on May 10 said it had hired William K. Heiden as
president and chief operating officer. He had been head of Schering-Plough's
oncology/biotechnology business unit.
JEFFREY KRASNER [BGlobe, 10/02/02 ] |
