In Vivo is part of Pharma Intelligence UK Limited

This site is operated by Pharma Intelligence UK Limited, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 13787459 whose registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. The Pharma Intelligence group is owned by Caerus Topco S.à r.l. and all copyright resides with the group.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use. For high-quality copies or electronic reprints for distribution to colleagues or customers, please call +44 (0) 20 3377 3183

Printed By

UsernamePublicRestriction

What Lies Behind the Curtain at HGS?

Executive Summary

With Human Genome Sciences freed from obligations to share its genomics data exclusively with the 6-company human gene therapeutic consortium, HGS is set to look for its own new product-oriented alliances. But the 8-year-old company and its consortium have yielded only four compounds in clinical trials. HGS CEO William Haseltine says that the company can leverage its tremendous assets to strike potentially rich deals. The key question is how many human therapeutic proteins remain to be uncovered.

You may also be interested in...



The State of Investing in Antibody Technology

Since December 2001, only two privately held antibody firms have raised more than $15 million in a round of financing. Moreover, the older public companies founded on the promise of disruptive antibody development technologies, principally Abgenix and Medarex with fully human antibodies, and Human Genome Sciences with its antibody-driven genomics discovery science, have yet to validate those platforms through successful clinical product development. Even antibody humanization specialist Protein Design Labs, which has marketed antibody products from which it's getting royalties, is still selling for not much more than its cash value. Yet despite a fall-off in investments in this core area of biotech drug development, VCs still say antibodies will provide a range of successful new therapies.

Terra Infirma: Pharma Dealmaking 2001

With Big Pharma still trying to figure out how to create productive businesses from their mega-mergers, most of the year's high-value M&A saw biotechs buying late-stage or marketed products. But these biotechs are also, with the risk of development failure ever clearer, actively in-licensing and acquiring products and product-creating technologies in order to diversify what are often single-product portfolios. Unlike many Big Pharmas, these companies have been willing to improve existing chemical entities, often exploiting drug delivery and other pharmaceutical sciences. Meanwhile, large companies focused on late-stage in-licensing, in part because they couldn't afford acquisitions--given the valuation disparities between large companies and small ones with valuable late-stage products. Nonetheless, while more affordable than acquisitions, the high price of these deals has transferred the majority of the regulatory and commercial risk to the licensee. As for the early-stage side of the biotech industry: platform companies have not been able to sell their discovery technologies at anything like the prices they expected; as a result, many of them have merged in an effort to create product-focused discovery operations.

Despite 'Remarkable' ROI On Women’s Health Investments, Money Still Lacking

Recent US government initiatives and growing investor interest are important for developing female-specific therapeutics, but funding is not yet where it should be.

Topics

Related Companies

Related Deals

Latest Headlines
See All
UsernamePublicRestriction

Register

IV001715

Ask The Analyst

Ask the Analyst is free for subscribers.  Submit your question and one of our analysts will be in touch.

Your question has been successfully sent to the email address below and we will get back as soon as possible. my@email.address.

All fields are required.

Please make sure all fields are completed.

Please make sure you have filled out all fields

Please make sure you have filled out all fields

Please enter a valid e-mail address

Please enter a valid Phone Number

Ask your question to our analysts

Cancel