I am fairly knowledgeable amout Immulogic, so let me shed a little light on the discussion.
IMUL's partner was not Rhone, but Marion Merrell Dow, which was purchased last year by Hoechst, now known as Hoechst Marion Roussel (HMR). MMD had pumped $100M into IMUL's research program and was due to pump in approximately another $20M or so.
HMR's not talking about why they gave back the rights to Allervax in return for being released from all further obligations. However, the scuttlebutt is that HMR thought the market was Allervax was too small for them to be involved. HMR has been actively dismantling many of the former MMR's programs and also divesting itself of other biotech-related programs; it appears to be getting rid of all its vaccine programs, for example. Some say that IMUL might have been pressuring HMR for a further commitment to develop a second generation of Allervax products that could be taken orally (current generation must be injected) and that HMR was balking. Under this scenario, IMUL was basically looking for another partner anyway.
Trial results for IMUL's two lead products, Allervax Cat and Allervax Ragweed, have been very good. Allervax Ragweed just finished Phase II/III trial and results were clinically and statistically significant. Another Phase III trial will be done this summer. Results from pivotal trial for Allervax Cat are due in June.
If the Allervax Cat results come in good, then IMUL should have no trouble finding another partner. One analyst has suggested that either Upjohn or Pharmacia could be interested. I think the market grossly overreacted. I also think the selloff was not related to suspicions about IMUL's trial results; the trials were put together very well and results are pretty clean. I think selloff had more to do with IMUL's losing an important marketing channel. IMUL itself has no way to distribute Allervax and has only a small manufacturing program.
Paul |
