Partnerships

Thomson Reuters' Mark Gordon looks at how real partnership opportunities are developing in a virtual pharma world.

Waters Corporation (Milford, MA) and Ireland's National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT, Dublin, Ireland) have formed a collaboration that will create the world?s first database for glycan analysis by UltraPerformance liquid chromatography (UPLC).

This practicum combines business elements with scientific concepts.

Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of the Sanofi-Aventis Group, has signed an agreement with KaloBios Pharmaceuticals for the development of humanized antibody fragment to both treat and prevent Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections.

ImmunoVaccine Technologies, Inc. (IVT) has formed a research agreement with Scancell, Ltd. to explore the potential of using IVT's DepoVax delivery system for Scancell's ImmunoBody DNA vaccines.

ImmunoVaccine Technologies, Inc. (IVT, Halifax, Nova Scotia), a vaccine development company, has formed a research partnership with FIT Biotech (Tampere, Finland), a clinical stage company that develops DNA vaccines.

SAFC (St. Louis, MO), a member of the Sigma-Aldrich group, and Cherokee Pharmaceuticals (Riverside, PA), have formed an exclusive strategic partnership that encompasses the sourcing, analytical testing, warehousing, packaging, and distribution of large-scale raw materials for pharmaceutical manufacturing meeting cGMP quality standards.

Waters Corporation (Milford, MA) and LabVantage Solutions, Inc. (Bridgewater, NJ) have formed a partnership to integrate laboratory software for improved efficiency and effectiveness. Collaborating with existing common customers, Waters and LabVantage have already integrated LabVantage's Sapphire Laboratory Information Management Suite (LIMS) with Waters NuGenesis Scientific Data Management System (SDMS) and Empower 2 chromatography data software (CDS) solutions.

AstraZeneca has announced the divestment of the AstraZeneca Biotech Laboratory (ABL) in Södertälje, Sweden, to Recipharm AB of Sweden, a contract development and manufacturing organization.

Human Genome Sciences (HGS, Rockville, MD, www.hgsi.com) has recently entered into manufacturing partnerships with Hospira (Lake Forcest, IL, www.hospira.com) and Eden Biodesign (Liverpool, UK, www.edenbiodesign.com).

GeoVax Labs, Inc. (Atlanta, GA) and Vivalis (Nantes, France) have signed a letter of intent (LOI) for joint collaboration and commercial license using Vivalis’s EBx technology to manufacture the MVA component of GeoVax’s HIV-1 vaccine.

Merck Serono (Geneva, Switzerland), a division of Merck KGaA, and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland) have entered into a research collaboration agreement in neuroscience, oncology, and drug delivery.

Dynavax Technologies Corporation (Berkeley, CA) and Merck & Co., Inc. (Whitehouse Station, NJ) have announced a global license and development collaboration agreement to jointly develop HEPLISAV, an investigational hepatitis B vaccine that is currently being evaluated in a multi-center Phase 3 clinical trial involving adults and in patients on dialysis.

One of the very last sessions on the very last day of BIO 2005 drew quite a crowd. It was titled, "The Five Worst Mistakes You Can Make When Creating a Collaboration or Strategic Alliance."

He potential for frustration, time-wasting, and bad feelings between pharma and biotech partners is enormous. That some successful decisions are made under these circumstances is something of a miracle.

Biotechnology players are emerging in countries that historically have not been substantially active in this industry.

by David Wallis, Dechert and Jan Heybroek Whether you're on the inlicensing or outlicensing side of a collaboration, attention must be paid to putting forth the right image and learning about your prospective partners before the alliance is struck.