It's not in the top 200 prescriptions, and it sells for $300 a year, so it can't be big bucks.
Interesting mirror-image stories on Bloomberg on CLTR and IDEC looking for late stage cancer compounds (courtesy a Yahoo post). I guess they get to join a long line looking at not very many compounds.
Palo Alto, California, March 12 (Bloomberg) -- Coulter Pharmaceuticals Inc., a start-up biotech company that this year will seek approval of its first drug, hopes to boost its product pipeline through acquisitions, the company's chief executive said.
Coulter is in talks with companies that have experimental drugs and technologies that could be used for treating cancer, the medical area that four-year-old Coulter is focusing on, Coulter CEO and President Michael F. Bigham said in an interview.
He said the company is ''aggressively looking'' for products that its sales force could market alongside Bexxar -- a treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma that Coulter hopes will win U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval by the end of this year. ''We're very well positioned to build an oncology franchise from this springboard,'' Bigham said. ''There is an opportunity to build significant critical mass.''
The company is prepared to use cash -- it had $140 million as of the end of December -- as well as its own stock to license drug candidates or technologies or acquire companies, Bigham said.
and for IDEC:
San Diego, March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Idec Pharmaceuticals Corp., one of a handful of profitable biotechnology companies, is seeking to make an acquisition this year to fuel earnings growth, the company's chief executive said.
Idec shares have soared about 16 percent this year amid hopes its Rituxan treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma will become a blockbuster. The drug, introduced in October 1997, last year had sales of $162.6 million. That's record revenue from a cancer treatment in its first year on the market.
Idec is looking to buy a company with a cancer treatment in the late-stages of clinical testing or acquire rights to such a product, said CEO William Rastetter. ''We're always in discussions with people who have such things,'' he said in an interview. ''Sooner or later, it will happen.''
Rituxan was the first cancer treatment approved in the U.S. among a class of bioengineered drugs known as monoclonal antibodies. The drug, which was developed with Genentech Inc., was designed to attack only the cancerous cells, not healthy cells, which can be harmed by chemotherapy agents.
An acquisition would give the company's 33 sales representatives a product to market alongside Rituxan. And Idec might be able to hold onto all of the drug's revenue. Rituxan sales are shared with Genentech. ''They're probably shoring up to do something significant,'' said Rob Toth, a Vector Securities analyst with a ''neutral'' recommendation on Idec shares. ''I'd be excited to see that happen.''
Idec isn't the only biotech company looking to make an acquisition this year. Bigger rivals including Genentech, Amgen Inc., Chiron Corp. and Immunex Corp. have said they're shopping for new products.
full stories at:
quote.bloomberg.com
quote.bloomberg.com
Seems to me like SCIO is also gearing up for an acquisition - they dumped their GLFD stock even though they don't actually seem to need the cash.
Peter
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