In June, Digene Corp. of Gaithersburg was sold for $1.8 billion to Qiagen NV of the Netherlands, whose U.S. headquarters are near Digene’s in Germantown.
Also this year, Cambrex Corp., with headquarters in East Rutherford, N.J., sold its Walkersville stem cell and tissue culture facility for $460 million to Lonza, a Swiss life sciences company. Lonza planned to keep the 400 employees at the plant and hire more.
Grab your partner
Avalon Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Germantown forged a new partnership with Merck & Co. Inc. that could net the Germantown biotech $200 million, plus royalties. Merck will help find drugs that can inhibit a new cancer target discovered by Avalon.
The deal was typical of this year’s heightened interest by big pharma in partnering with emerging biotechs, said David Muth, Avalon’s chief business officer.
As Avalon, founded in 2000, moves through biotech adolescence, it is one of many attractive companies for partnering, Muth said. ‘‘The number of biotechs’ pre-clinical deals with pharma are up and the value of them is up.”
Older biotechs that originally were largely genomics companies, such as Gene Logic of Gaithersburg and Human Genome Sciences Inc. of Rockville, reinvented themselves and attracted new supporting partners. GeneLogic, renamed Ore Pharmaceuticals, corralled a stable of big pharma partners, including Eli Lilly, Abbott and Pfizer to help it find new medical uses for drug candidates stalled in development. Ore also sold its genomics assets to Ocimum Biosolutions Ltd. for $10 million.
At Human Genome Sciences, a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline in 2006 has now brought it to the doorstep of marketing its lupus treatment. HGS also has deals with Schering-Plough Corp. and Takeda Chemical Corp.
In another twist of genomics with significant business potential, Synthetic Genomics, the new company of Celera Genomics founder J. Craig Venter, filed a patent to create a new life form. Venter’s group partnered with energy giant BP to design made-to-order genetic components for genomes in simple bacteria that would be capable of creating new sources of energy, perhaps from plants.
Emergent BioSolutions Inc. of Rockville signed a deal worth up to $448 million to provide the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with anthrax vaccines and related services. The bulk of the contract — $400 million — was for 18.75 million doses of the company’s BioThrax vaccine for the strategic national stockpile, according to company information. The company expected to deliver about 6 million doses this year. As a result, Emergent reaffirmed its expectation for annual revenue growth approaching 15 percent.
In other biotech news this year:
*Iomai Corp. of Gaithersburg won a contract worth up to $128 million from the Department of Health and Human Services to fund development of a dose-sparing patch for use with a pandemic influenza vaccine.
*Advancis Pharmaceutical Corp. of Germantown changed its name, under court order, to MiddleBrook Pharmaceuticals Inc. Previously, Advancis lost trademark infringement suit filed by French biopharma giant Sanofi-Aventis.
*The nonprofit Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation in Rockville received a $200 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop the next generation of effective and affordable TB vaccines.
*Malaria-fighting firm Sanaria Inc. of Rockville, and its partner, the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, opened a new vaccine manufacturing plant, made possible largely by a $29.3 million grant, also from the Gates Foundation.
Also this year, the state government continued to foster the biotech industry.
The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission divvied up its first year of state research grants worth $15 million. Of 24 projects, Johns Hopkins University researchers won 15 grants, University of Maryland researchers won eight grants and one company, RetroTherapy LLC of Bethesda, received funding. The state also bumped up available funds this year to $25 million.
Gov. Martin O’Malley named the 15 members of the state’s first life sciences advisory board, charged with developing a strategic growth plan for the sector by Dec. 31, 2008.
And Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot hosted a one-day brainstorming symposium on life sciences that featured summaries by industry and university leaders.
Health care developments
*Visicu Inc. of Baltimore, which provides round-the-clock remote monitoring of patients in intensive care units, was sold to Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands for about $430 million.
*Catalyst, a subsidiary of HealthExtras Inc. with 140 employees in Rockville, won a $1.1 billion, five-year state contract to provide prescription benefits to more than 200,000 beneficiaries.
*Independent pharmacies reported cash flow problems stemming from the Medicare prescription drug program known as Part D. The law, which took effect in January 2006, doesn’t mandate a time limit for pharmacy benefit management companies to reimburse pharmacies. More than a thousand pharmacies nationwide have gone out of business as a result, according to an industry group.
*Some physicians, fed up with dealing with insurance companies, converted to strictly retainer practices, dropping insurance coverage entirely.
*The Maryland Physician Workforce Study steering committee told the Governor’s Health Care Access and Reimbursement Task Force that widespread shortages in many physician specialties could be expected by 2015 in Maryland, especially in rural counties, unless action is taken soon. The committee recommended capping medical malpractice awards, forgiving medical school loans for new rural physicians, rotating physicians into rural areas, increasing student slots in medical schools, and new legislation to give Maryland physicians relief from their allegedly decreasing reimbursement rates.
*Maryland hospitals reported a nurse vacancy rate of 13 percent last year, according to the state hospital association, which last month proposed a $59 million program to train more nurses.
*A new survey supported in part by the University of Maryland revealed that part of the nation’s nurse shortage results from nurses getting ill on the job and quitting. Nurses with long-term and intense exposures to environmental hazards developed above-normal levels of cancer, asthma, miscarriages, children’s birth defects and other serious medical conditions, according to the survey.
