Novartis to Pay Infinity to Develop Cancer Treatments [WSJ]
By ROBERT TOMSHO
March 6, 2006; Page B2
Infinity Pharmaceuticals Inc. will receive as much as $400 million under a pact with Novartis AG to develop drugs to attack a protein that's key to the survival of many types of cancer cells.
The two biotechnology concerns are expected to announce the agreement today.
During the first two years of the collaboration, closely held Infinity, of Cambridge, Mass., will receive $30 million from the Swiss drug giant in upfront licensing fees, research funding and an equity investment. Major pharmaceutical makers, some of them stifled in traditional routes of developing new drugs, are increasingly turning to smaller biotech companies to help fill their pipelines.
Total payments from Novartis could reach $400 million if Infinity meets certain goals related to actual drug development and commercialization. Novartis has also agreed to invest an undisclosed amount in a public offering of Infinity shares, expected in the next two years.
The funding from Novartis boosts Infinity's plans to join a long-running industry effort to find or develop a compound that will inhibit the protein Bcl-2, whose overproduction in cancer cells helps them survive and resist treatment.
Many pharmaceutical concerns and research institutions have related drugs in various stages of development, but the complex interaction of the proteins has long challenged researchers. Loren Walensky, a physician and scientist at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said science is getting closer to cracking the problem but noted that 20 years after the protein was identified as a contributing cause to cancer, there still isn't an approved drug "that inhibits Bcl-2 and renders cancer cells more vulnerable."
Julian Adams, Infinity's chief scientific officer, said the company aims to attack Bcl-2 by developing synthetic compounds that mirror certain molecules found in nature -- molecules more complex than have typically been used in related research. He said the company has developed prototype compounds in the lab and is preparing them for clinical testing.
Steven Holtzman, Infinity's president and chief executive, said the Novartis pact "allows us to accelerate and broaden the discovery and development of this new class of anticancer drugs, which can have broad applicability across multiple different blood cancers and tumors."
Jeremy Levin, global head of strategic alliances for the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, said Infinity "has assembled an excellent team of not only people who make chemistry, but people who understand drug discovery."
The agreement is the second between the two companies. Last year, Novartis, with annual sales of $32 billion, agreed to pay Infinity more than $10 million to help it design chemical compounds for use in broader drug development. Novartis will have an ownership stake of less than 10% in the company as a result of the two pacts, Infinity executives said.
Infinity, founded in 2001 and specializing in cancer, has also forged collaborations in recent years with Amgen Inc., Thousand Oaks, Calif., and Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, N.J.
Novartis last year entered into 195 collaborations with academic centers and small biotech companies in 20 countries.
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