Genentech to buy biotech Tanox for $900 million

pharmafile | November 10, 2006 | News story | Sales and Marketing Genentech 

 

Genentech is to pay $919 million for Tanox, a biotech company which specialises in monoclonal antibodies.

Genentech has been working with Tanox and Novartis since 1996 on the development and commercialisation of Xolair, an anti-IgE monoclonal antibody treatment for patients with moderate-to-severe allergic asthma.

Genentech says the deal makes sense financially, as it eliminates the royalty it currently pays to Tanox for Xolair, and it will also receive the payments Novartis provides to the company.

On top of this Genentech will also acquire Tanox's product pipeline, which it says contains a number of promising drugs, many of which use the same IgE inhibition mechanism used in Xolair.

"IgE inhibition is an important way to treat patients with moderate-to-severe asthma and we look forward to growing our asthma business by increasing the number of patients treated and by introducing new indications, formulations, and next generation products. This acquisition will help us improve our profitability from Xolair," said Arthur Levinson, chief executive of Genentech.

"We are also excited by molecules in the Tanox pipeline being developed to potentially treat diseases including asthma, HIV, and age-related macular degeneration," Levinson added.

Based in Houston, Tanox is likely to be partially absorbed into the California-based Genentech, with a review to be conducted in the next few months. Tanox also has a manufacturing facility in San Diego, which will help boost Genentech's overall monoclonal antibody manufacturing capacity.

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