Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MLNM) Message Board

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Biotech / Medical : Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MLNM)

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To: tuck who wrote (1913)	10/29/2003 4:47:13 AM
From: Icebrg	Read Replies (1) of 3044

Tuck <<That seems a little harsh.>> Truth can sometimes be very harsh. Bayer has spent five years and almost 500 mUSD for what? Two potential drug candidates in preclinical development. I believe they had expected more. They have/had a similar even larger agreement with Curagen, if I remember correctly. Now, what goes on at Bayer is of less concern. The interesting question for this board is what conclusions that may be drawn for Millennium from the performance in Bayer's labs. The answer seems to be that we should not expect too much to emerge as potential drug candidates from the research dollars that Millennium has poured their own labs over the last five years. A comparisons between their company presentations of two years ago and the ones they like to project today illustrate the change that has taken place. It used to be productivity in research, number of high-speed screens done per year, number of potential and validated targets identified, number of targets etc. etc. I have a May 2001 slide where they claim 153 targets under the headline: Comprehensive Millennium Pipeline - Early lead selection. And in the same presentation the company claims 56 (additional) validated targets. These days the company presentations concentrate on three different subjects. Products, dollars and biology. Maybe because they have the products now. Maybe because they know that targets without a thorough understanding of the biology behind the targets are more or less useless. But still, the early genomic efforts did not bring the harvests that were expected. Millennium was smart enough to find partners who were convinced to pay most of their bills. And they were lucky enough to buy a company with a compound that may well turn into a blockbuster. But as for future results from the early genomic efforts, we shouldn't expect too much. The achievements from the Bayer/MLNM and Abbott/MLNM partnerships are perfect illustrations of this fact. Erik PS Dissenting voices are as always very welcome.

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