I have "borrowed" the following from Motley Fool's biotech board. I think it is interesting in so far as it reflects in a good way the very different opinions that exist with regard to Millennium. And don't give up. The best stuff comes towards the end.
Erik
Isn't it interesting that a couple of years ago we collectively spent ten times as much effort discussing CRA as opposed to MLNM, and now the CRA board is essentially dead (except for Dodge, who won't let go of his last $50 of CRA shares, once worth more than my new car, until we pull them from his "cold, dead hands"). And whatever happened to JDBarron??? You newbies don't know what you missed!
Anyway, I thought the following long-running MLNM thread from the Biotech Rumor Mill was relevant to this discussion, particularly the posts from an "ex-employee" towards the end. MLNM certainly does bring out strong opinions.
Happy New Year to all my biotech brethren! I hope this year is as profitable for all of us as last year was (and that we get back to even sometime before the decade is out!).
Fushi
Rumor: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 04/06/2003 08:15:31
Category: Pharmaceutical
When are the next rounds of Millennium Layoffs Happening? I am hearing in the neighborhood off 1/4 of R&D. I also hear that there will be a big company meeting next week to discuss the new structure. Any info out there?
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 09/06/2003 10:52:30
Category: Pharmaceutical
In addition to the closing of San Fran and the UK office there will also be 40% cuts in admin and 25% in R&D in Boston.
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 06/06/2003 08:30:12
Category: Pharmaceutical
the head of r & D is a guy who i have heard is young and brash and has run many companies to the ground at least the r & D part of it.
I have had first hand experience of it
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Truth in posting on 09/06/2003 09:59:58
Category: Pharmaceutical
Indeed. You don't appear to know what you are talking about. BT is head of R&D and he has never worked anywhere but Millenium (ex-academic).
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Zarathustra on 06/06/2003 08:15:11
Category: Pharmaceutical
I understand there will be more lay-offs by the end of the month. Could Millennium be trying to make itself skinny/sexy for some suitor? After all, Novartis is just around the corner in Cambridge AND will be across the street in the old NECCO bldg. soon.
How safe are the people in SF? Integrillin is nice, but... They need to re-emphasize the personalized medicine/pharmacogenomics aspect,again. That's what got them the big collaboration $$$ from big Pharma. Remember drugs are only good for about 40% of the people that meet the criteria for prescription due to factors of efficacy and side-effects. Maybe, if you could genetically identify and/or exclude people from preposed trials and/or ultimately approved treatments, drug development and approval would be easier and less costly. After all, wasn't this idea that got Millennnium started?
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 09/06/2003 09:57:54
Category: Pharmaceutical
I've said this before. You just don't get it. The trials will be MoRE costly as MORE people will be disqualified AFTER testing. Restricting your market to "better" responders is just that, restricting your market, plus you'll have to test people before you prescribe. Lets see for example there are two cholesterol lowering drugs, one works best on 40% population and requires a test to identify the best responders, the other works on everyone, which one would you prescribe ?? And if you are the developer of the former, your research just threw out 40% of your potential market!
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 01/07/2003 11:29:12
Category: Pharmaceutical
It is obvious that you and the previous guy who commented about pharmacogenetics are neither scientists nor reasonably informed business-types. Genetic testing to determine efficacy and toxicity is an emerging concept that will likely be required by the regulatory agencies for new drug development going forward. The bottom line is this. Giving expensive new medications that are ineffective to 20-80% of the population is a waste of money as viewed by the payors, the Government, the health insurance industry, and the patients. The only group that benefits under the current system is the big pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Rumor: Pharmacogenomics/Millennium Dream is a Joke
Posted by An American Investor on 12/11/2003 09:47:40
Category: Pharmaceutical
As an investor I can say that I have no faith in Millennium's pharmacogenomics future. The people who say that pharmacogenomics is the future are correct in my opinion but they seem to forget that most large pharma companies all have this capability or potential in house. Thus, any FDA changes will continue to favor the large companies and not Millennium or Genessaince Pharma who *hope* to be leaders in this field.
Why would company X co-market with Millennium when they can get GSK or some one else with a proven track records to get their stuff to market? And that is the problem. Millennium has lied to investors about progress and they are going to have to pay for it. Didn't this company tell us all that they would have 10 drugs in clinical trials by 2000? So don't believe any PR statements about in house work.
This view is not all bad news as one would expect. Many of us anticipate that Millennium will soon have to be acquired, which is the only reason I still have this company in my portfolio. Then we will see appropriate, massive layoffs since 90% of the company staff are useless or incompetent. We investors will milk Millennium for all its worth and get our money back and more. Point Blank: they shouldn't have lied to us.
Rumor: Re: Pharmacogenomics/Millennium Dream is a Joke
Posted by Anonymous on 17/11/2003 12:10:49
Category: Pharmaceutical
What you expect from a shoe salesman?
Rumor: Re: Pharmacogenomics/Millennium Dream is a Joke
Posted by Anonymous on 13/11/2003 10:19:04
Category: Pharmaceutical
Why would any big Pharma want to acquire Millennium? In case you haven't noticed all of the big Pharmas have ended their collaborations with Millennium because they have realized that the whole company is based on smoke and mirrors. Successful American Investor you may be waiting a long time to get your money back.
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 03/07/2003 10:31:08
Category: Pharmaceutical
And it's obvious that you have never been intimately involved with a real clinical trial. The regulators have already burdened trials with such a staggering amount of beauracracy that few companies can survive a full 3 phases of trials as it is. No company could survive the current scope of trials _after_ having subdivided the market. Unfortunately, you can be sure that the FDA nimrods will fail to recognize this and will never allow 2 similar drugs to be developed for 2 separate populations for anything less than 2 times the cost. Probably 3 times the cost as they will pile on a load of validation for the segregation test.
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 09/06/2003 09:55:32
Category: Pharmaceutical
I hope that you were joking about excluding people from "perposed trials" by genetics. If not, then you need a lesson in genetics. In order to find the people to eliminate by genetics, you first need drug treated populations to study to find the people who you want to exclude. And that is if you assume that there is a genetic factor (or factors) that are influencing the drug response. And that is only the beginning of your problems. Pharmacogenetics based on clinical trial populations is just a big crock.
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 14/11/2003 09:50:25
Category: Pharmaceutical
Actually, the easiest thing to do would be once you know how the drug is metabolized, if through the liver, to identify the pathways, and there are genetic variation in the metabolism, which can greatly vary the dose that becomes available. Roche will soon have a test to identify slow P450 3A4 or 2C9 metabolizers (i dont remember which). Once you have excluded those people, you have a better chance at looking at the clinical effect of the drug, assuming it gets into the blood stream in therapeutic levels. That would be the first easy application of genetics. However, as a recent poster correctly pointed out, there is nothing unique about Millenium's capability to be able to help in this realm.
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Not a TRACE on 24/11/2003 10:44:11
Category: Pharmaceutical
there has never been anything unique about MLNM other than the presnece of a Grand Piano in Sydney Street. It has been one big illusion since day one with the only beneficiaries being ML and his peacocks and the terminally incompetent slaphead Tepid. The only people who really lost out were the patients. How many pharmaceutical companies do you know that refer to patient groups as franchises? JA jumped ship for 2 reasons (1). Despite velcade, he could not get Tepids job. Incredible really. I saw someone vomit outside the Albany Street Meth. clinic who knew more about drugs than Tepid. (2). He was told by Tepid that the layoffs were not over. What is left of Lead Discovery will go in January. Some who have been involved in the Bayer collab for a number of years have already been told that they are going but asked to stay quiet. This is unlikely to be a major issue as the Novartis life raft awaits with their ex MLNM captain. Tepid and ML have a gentlemens (no jokes please) agreement with J&J which will see them ok. It would have happened sooner if Bayer and Abbott had released MLNM from the collabs when MLNM originally requested (Jan 2003). Has MLNM announced that Abbott get everything from the collab? Targets, animal models, compounds, i.p the lot? And (not that it matters) MLNM are not allowed to work in this field for the forseeable future. Of course, it screwed up LTs own metabolic based corporate scam but hey ho, he still has his Porche. Its the MLNM logo - "I'm alright - so screw you."
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 22/12/2003 10:31:54
Category: Pharmaceutical
"Not a TRACE" = typical, clueless, bitter, laid-off doofus, repeating overheard but misunderstood gossip from his betters.
Millennium, like any other biotech company, has it good and bad points, its good and bad managers, and its good and bad business ideas. But after the most tumultuous period in this industry's history, there isn't a single biotech company founded in the past 10 years that wouldn't trade places with Millennium in a flash. What does that tell you?
Whether ML is a brilliant CEO or just lucky, the fact is that Millennium is going to make it, which is more than we can say for most of their contemporaries. Criticize success if you want, but it just makes you sound clueless.
Oh, by the way, "franchise" is a commonly used word to describe a therapeutic area in which a company holds a significant industry position (wistfully applied in the case of the typical biotech!). Do a Google search for "franchise + pharmaceutical" if you don't believe me. Or look at Wood Mackenzie's website as they've done a nice analysis of the relative strengths of different big pharma franchises.
Sincerely,
An laid-off Millennium employee with a clue.
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 23/12/2003 10:48:15
Category: Pharmaceutical
What do you mena by "make it ?" First of all, they will never "make" anything, secondly they cash horde will allow them to stumble along long enough for them to appear to have "made it," the reality of course is that is company was "make believe."
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Tired of gratuitous BS on 05/01/2004 10:36:52
Category: Pharmaceutical
"Make it" = turn a decent and sustainable profit. If your start-up has already done so, then go ahead and laugh at Millennium, otherwise... There's more BS in these dork-on-the-street criticisms of Millennium than there ever was in Millennium's business plan, which has somehow managed to create a company with 3 marketed drugs, 12 in the clinic, and $900 million in the bank. As I said, they have their share of problems, but if that is "make believe", then we might as well give up on the biotech industry.
Also, to the previous poster “An American Investor”, as a shareholder in Millennium I would think you'd know that their pharmacogenomics effort is being applied to their own clinical trials and is not a service they are trying to sell to big pharma. Try reading a press release or two before investing next time.
I don't know why I'm wasting my time defending them; they laid me off after all! I guess I'm sorry to have left. It was a fun, challenging, scientifically interesting place, and I look forward to watching them "make it."
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 23/12/2003 10:46:13
Category: Pharmaceutical
One does have to question the talents of the management - Various publications have touted these guys as the creme de la creme, and to my mind they represent one of the worst performing groups in biotech ever. Consider
1) Their new drug velecade that will probably keep them afloat was bought as part of an aquistion, they didn't develop it themselves.
2) On top of that they tried to kill the velecade drug project not once but twice.
3) Their deals with Bayer and Abbott delievered way, way less than promised. (Bayer apparently feels they identified four possible drugable targets !
4) Their high-throughput expression approach, the keystone of their deals, was scientifically unsound, and if what I hear is true, that was obvious from the start, the scientists they had in that area at the time weren't included in the discussions, just marketing !!
5) Their "personal medicine" model has lots PR, but as they say "Where's the meat ?" Basically so far it's just buzz words.
It's not that they won't survive it just that they had one of the largest piles of dough in the whole business and basically pissed it into the wind !
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 27/11/2003 10:39:23
Category: Pharmaceutical
Amazing that CH, from the Corr acquisition, wasn't instrumental in pruning down the organization. He is good with the hatchet. ML should get the hatchet first..
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Warning, long post on 05/01/2004 10:46:03
Category: Pharmaceutical
Sorry, I didn't see the post quoted below before writing my earlier more glib response. You make some interesting points, presumably as someone on the outside looking in, which provides a more unbiased perspective but also makes it hard to know what is really going on and whether the water cooler gossip is reliable. As an insider (former), my perspective is undoubtedly biased, but I do know more of what is going on. Anyway, here are my replies to your individual points (obviously I'm not going to say anything that isn't public knowledge or my personal opinion):
You wrote: "One does have to question the talents of the management - Various publications have touted these guys as the creme de la creme, and to my mind they represent one of the worst performing groups in biotech ever."
My response: This sort of comment really amazes me. First off, after the last few years I think we all realize now that the writings of financial pundits and Wall Street analysts are suitable only for use as emergency toilet paper. If they got it wrong, that's their problem not Millennium's senior management (what do you want ML to say, “we're not a smart as you claim”?). As the bubble deflated, I've certainly heard a lot of criticism of ML and gang, but a lot of it seems to be over the top to me. Maybe that's understandable if you lost money, but even after the crash were are talking about a CEO that turned $8 million in VC funding into a $5 billion company in 10 years! If you had ever worked with ML you would have found him to be one of the brightest, most engaging and energetic CEOs in biotech. Is he infallible? Obviously not, but personally, if I were starting a new venture, he'd be on the short short list. I've also seen him take responsibility for the mistakes he's made, which is a pretty rare commodity at that level. He's just a nice guy, and a lot of people at Millennium would jump off a building if he asked them to.
Millennium is clearly the most successful biotech of the last decade, and I'm pretty certain that wouldn't be true if not for ML. Are you going to criticize him for not creating the next Amgen in those 10 years? Pretty high standards. Likewise, it seems silly to criticize him, as many do, for taking advantage of an inflated stock market to raise a huge pile of cash. Too bad for the lemmings who paid to much, but that's not Millennium's problem, is it? If any CEO came out and said “don't buy our shares, they are overvalued”, he'd be lynched by the shareholders (apparently only Microsoft's Steve Balmer can do this, although no one paid any attention!).
Those around ML, IMHO, are more of a mixed bag. Some I like, some I don't, but they are all hard working, aggressive and really bright. I never really liked SH, the business guru who jumped ship, but it's hard to argue with the success he had in signing big pharmas up to mega deals. Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to do the same at his new venture, but it isn't 1999 anymore. If you want to criticize him because some scientists at some pharmas don't think their money was well spent (some apparently do, some do not), well they had their chance to do due diligence. If they thought genomics was going to solve all their problems, and they were willing to pay through the nose for it, they deserve what they get. As yet, I haven't seen any one sue Millennium for fraud or failure to meet the terms of their deals.
Your wrote: “Consider 1) Their new drug velecade that will probably keep them afloat was bought as part of an aquistion, they didn't develop it themselves. “
This is the sort of comment that only a non-business person would make. Millennium exists solely to make a profit (helping patients is great, but if you don't turn a profit, you won't be helping for long). ML and gang were clearly much better managers than their contemporaries at other so-called “genomics” companies, since they were the only ones to really make an effort to diversify. They realized (even if Wall Street didn't) that genomics or not, it takes a lot of time, luck and cash to develop a drug. So they diversified to build up their downstream development capabilities and pipeline. With the cash they raised in the market and from selling genomics to their partners, they essentially bought most of the pieces of a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company. If they hadn't, Millennium would be in exactly the same situation as Human Genome Science and all of the other companies in this sector who to varying degrees tried to do it all internally and are running out of steam as the inevitable clinical failures start to set in (admittedly, HGS did diversify some, which is the only reason they still have a fighting chance). So, criticizing them for buying drugs and other companies to diversify is really getting it totally backwards. That was the single smartest move anyone in this sector did in the last 10 years. And again, the bottom line is making a profit, not satisfying some vision of “doing it alone” or living up to a hypothetical idea on a 10 year-old business plan.
Your wrote: “2) On top of that they tried to kill the velecade drug project not once but twice.”
My response: It's well known that at the time of the LeukoCyte merger, Velcade was not considered a major commodity by Millennium or anyone else (except JA, who was either brilliant or amazingly lucky in his single-minded devotion to this drug). “Obviously” we all know targeting something as ubiquitously important as the proteosome is a really dumb idea, except that in this case it turns out it wasn't. At the time of the merger Velcade had just entered phase I (after having taken forever to get that far in the pre-merger companies), but with in a year and a half it was fast tracked at Millennium. So, in addition to Millennium quickly realizing the true value of this crazy idea, they didn't make a single mistake with it's rocket-fast development. Which is amazing considering their lack of experience in developing anything. Remember when everyone thought they were idiotic to file based on phase II data, and then they received one of the fastest cancer drug approvals in history? So what exactly are you criticizing them for? For recognizing that a project any sane person would call crazy was a potential gold mine and then doing an amazing job developing it? Crazy like a fox!
Your wrote: “3) Their deals with Bayer and Abbott delivered way, way less than promised. (Bayer apparently feels they identified four possible drugable targets!
My response: Actually, I believe Bayer has announced only two drugs in preclinical development, so obviously pretty pathetic. But we are talking about Bayer here, so what did you expect? These guys actually thought that they could skip drug target validation and go right to development! Can you blame Millennium for taking their money (they've reported that they actually billed >$400M, which surely helped pay some Velcade bills) and saying “thank you”? Contrary to what you imply, Millennium pretty much lived up to the deal of providing several hundred “targets” (based on agreed upon criteria for deregulated expression in various diseases). It's not Millennium's problem that Bayer. They got what they asked for. Amazingly, Millennium even gets 80% of the pseudo-targets back. Crazy like a fox!
As far as Abbott goes, I would only say what everyone knows, that metabolic diseases are the single toughest nut to crack of any therapeutic area, plus Millennium needed to cut expenses to meet the post-bubble profit expectations of Wall Street. Obviously, you are going to kill the efforts that are furthest away from money making drugs. In actuality, my vague impression was that Abbott was reasonably happy with how things were going before Millennium decided to get out of that area. I presume they came to some sort of equitable arrangement to split up the results.
Your wrote: “4) Their high-throughput expression approach, the keystone of their deals, was scientifically unsound, and if what I hear is true, that was obvious from the start, the scientists they had in that area at the time weren't included in the discussions, just marketing !!”
My response: Now you are treading on my area of expertise, and this is just wrong. Granted, Millennium definitely went against the grain of the rest of the industry by staying focused on nylon-based cDNA microarrays, what most people would now consider pretty primitive technology. However, you apparently are not aware of the length that Millennium went to in order to really perfect this technology, far beyond anyone else. In many ways, Millennium's arrays actually perform better than other supposedly more advanced technologies such as glass slides and Affy arrays. Surely you don't think we would have kept using them if they didn't work? And our throughput was really amazing. But a year or so ago, Millennium switched over to Affy arrays. At the time I remember some clueless comments around here about how this “proves Millennium's technology sucks”. However, there are clearly certain advantages to Affy's (it's becoming the industry standard which has some value in collaborations, one can look at splice variants, smaller quantities of samples, the cost has dropped, and so on), but that doesn't mean Millennium's nylon arrays didn't work spectacularly well (these weren't your average cheapo Clontech arrays!). Finally, the proof is in the pudding, since all those target goals for our partners were met using this “scientifically unsound” technology. Whomever you have been listening to doesn't know what they are talking about.
You wrote: “5) Their "personal medicine" model has lots PR, but as they say "Where's the meat ?" Basically so far it's just buzz words.”
My response: Yes, I agree I'd like to see more data and less PR about personalized medicine. But as I pointed out in a previous post, all of this is in support of internal clinical trials and mostly for the more recent drugs in the clinic. There was lot of data collected during the pivotal Velcade trial that were submitted to the FDA, but you don't hear a lot about it for some reason, and I suspect there are not many companies that have actually submitted pharmacogenomics data. I think as clinical data is released, the role that pharmacogenomics will play at Millennium will start to be clarified. However, they have presented some nice data showing that they can subdivide Velcade patients. Also, no one in the industry really knows what they are doing in this area yet, or how it will play out. We'll just have to wait and see whether it pans out for Millennium or anyone else.
You wrote: “It's not that they won't survive it just that they had one of the largest piles of dough in the whole business and basically pissed it into the wind!”
My response: Thank God for all that cash! But they still have $900 million in the bank, several $100 million/year in revenues and at least a plan on how to reach profitability by 2006. I think it's too soon to say that they “pissed it into the wind”. At the very least, they got Velcade approved, and for myeloma patients (and I suspect for a few other cancers eventually) that is money well spent.
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 07/07/2003 17:48:45
Category: Pharmaceutical
There is no drug that works at the same level for everyone. Including genetic testing in phase II trials to identify genes that would predict response to the drug is a great tool that would be applied to population selection for a phase III trial. This way, a drug that would fail a phase III trial based on a random population will succeed the trial based on a pre-selected population. Now, if a physician had a test tp predict whether a drug would work or not, for sure they would use it. One example of such a successful drug is herceptin for Genentech. This drug is combined with a Her-2 test to evaluate whether it should be prescribed. Of course, everyone would like a drug that works on everyone the same way with no secondary effects, but it is very naive to believe that such a drug will exist. Humans are genetically distinct from one another and thefore creating drugs for subpopulations is the way of the future.
Rumor: Re: Millennium Layoffs
Posted by Anonymous on 09/06/2003 09:52:28
Category: Pharmaceutical
600 layoffs and 2 facilities to close. Thank you I don't think. |
