Here's what the WSJ had to say today about the GLFD deal:
Guilford Pharmaceuticals to Let
Amgen Develop Nerve Medicine
By ROBERT LANGRETH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Guilford Pharmaceuticals Inc. reached a wide-ranging
agreement with Amgen Inc. to develop Guilford's
medicines aimed at reviving damaged nerves in patients
with Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and other
brain disorders.
The deal, potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars
to tiny Guilford, of Baltimore, is one of the most
comprehensive biotechnology collaborations in recent
years. It aims to develop a new approach for treating brain
diseases, spinal injuries and head traumas, using a novel
class of experimental drugs that may help regenerate
damaged nerve cells.
News of the agreement sent Guilford's shares soaring 14%
in extremely heavy Nasdaq stock market trading
Thursday, rising $3.625 to $28.875, while Amgen's shares
rose 18.75 cents to $52.5625.
'Huge Markets'
"This deal represents potentially the biggest biotechnology
product line in history," said Matthew Geller, an analyst at
Oppenheimer & Co. "These are huge markets for which
there are very few treatments available now."
Scientists said Guilford's drugs appear to represent a
significant advance over previous drugs for re-generating
damaged nerves, most of which have faired poorly in
human tests. The old nerve drugs are bulky proteins that
cannot move from the bloodstream into the brain. Thus,
they are difficult to test because they must be injected
directly into the brain to work.
By contrast, Guilford's nerve drugs can be given orally and
move easily from the blood into the brain, where they seem
to home in on damaged nerve cells. In tests on laboratory
animals given a Parkinson's disease-like syndrome, the
drugs were able to restore damaged nerves and eliminate
many symptoms.
Years of Testing Ahead
"This is a breakthrough in brain biology," said Amgen brain
scientist Jean-Claude Louis. He cautioned, however, that
the Guilford approach is still in its infancy and will have to
undergo many years of testing before it is proven.
Significantly, the drugs have not yet been tested on
humans.
The deal represents an attempt by Amgen, of Thousand
Oaks, Calif., to bolster its product pipeline at a time when
sales growth for the company's major products is slowing.
Such deals are increasingly common in the biotech and
drug industries as established companies struggle to
develop hot new products.
Guilford and Amgen have competition. Vertex
Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biotechnology company in
Cambridge, Mass., is racing to develop similar nerve
growth agents. It says that its drugs have also successfully
restored injured nerves in laboratory animals, and that
human trials of its medicines could begin in a year or so.
Two Groups of Scientists
The new class of drugs was discovered several years ago
through the efforts of two groups of scientists, one led by
Guilford founder Solomon Snyder at Johns Hopkins
University and another led by Bruce Gold at Oregon
Health Sciences University, who later helped Vertex. Both
were independently investigating the properties of
FK-506, a drug used in organ transplantation. Both teams
unexpectedly found that FK-506 was able to stimulate
nerve growth. Guilford and Vertex have now designed
drugs that mimic FK-506's nerve growth properties, but
without suppressing the immune system as FK-506 does.
Under the agreement, Amgen will provide Guilford $48.5
million in cash payments, stock and warrant purchases and
research support. But Guilford could receive many millions
more in "milestone payments" as the drugs covered by the
deal move through human testing, up to a maximum of
$392 million if Guilford's drugs are approved for treating
all the diseases covered by the agreement.
In return, Amgen will be able to develop the Guilford drugs
for a wide-ranging number of disorders, including
Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, spinal injury,
stroke, multiple-sclerosis and head traumas. Guilford will
get royalties on sales of products. |
