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news.In a move that will boost its portfolio of cancer drugs, Japan's fourth largest drug maker Eisai Company has said it plans acquire US biotechnology group Morphotek for $325 million.
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Upon completion of the transaction, which is expected to close sometime during Eisai’s first fiscal quarter of 2007, Morphotek will become part of Eisai’s growing global discovery and development research network, which is comprised of research laboratories in Japan, Europe and the US.
Morphotek develops therapeutic monoclonal antibodies through the use of proprietary human antibody technologies, including Human MorphodomA and Libradoma. The company is leveraging these technologies to enrich its pipeline that already includes therapeutic antibody leads for the treatment of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and infectious disease. Two of its programs are currently in early stage clinical trials for the treatment of ovarian cancer and pancreatic cancer, respectively, with several others in preclinical development.
Eisai currently has an extensive global oncology research program for discovering small molecule anticancer agents, and upon completion of the acquisition, will expand its capabilities into the biologic therapeutics field. With this antibody technology acquisition, Eisai said it can meet a variety of medical needs of cancer patients, through the development of therapeutic antibodies, small-molecule anticancer drugs, and potential combinations of both.
Commenting on the deal, Haruo Naito, Eisai president and CEO, said: “By combining Morphotek’s proprietary technologies and promising therapeutic antibodies with Eisai’s existing research programs and infrastructure, we will be able to meet our goal of addressing the unmet medical needs of patients, especially cancer patients, all around the world. Morphotek’s rich pipeline, unique and proprietary antibody generation technology platform, and highly skilled management and scientific team will become the core of our R&D efforts in biologics.”
“Eisai’s substantial intellectual and managerial resources will enable us to accelerate the development of our current therapeutic antibody pipeline as well as develop a number of additional clinical compounds to targets accessed from our broad network of research collaborations and to those discovered by Eisai researchers globally,” added Nicholas Nicolaides, Morphotek CEO.