{"id":229935,"date":"2010-01-26T04:00:53","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T09:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xconomy.com\/?p=60070"},"modified":"2010-01-26T04:00:53","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T09:00:53","slug":"millennium-in-a-new-role-flexes-global-muscle-to-cut-deal-with-seattle-genetics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/229935","title":{"rendered":"Millennium, In a New Role, Flexes Global Muscle to Cut Deal With Seattle Genetics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Life Sciences<\/a>, Antibodies<\/a>, R&D<\/a><\/div>\n

\t\t\"millenniumtakeda1\"<\/a>
\n\t\tRyan McBride wrote:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Millennium is playing the role of global development and marketing partner to Seattle Genetics, something that would have been tricky for Cambridge, MA-based Millennium to nail before it became the cancer R&D arm of Japanese drug giant Takeda Pharmaceutical Company in May 2008.<\/p>\n

Last month, Millennium closed a major collaboration deal with Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ:SGEN<\/a>), buying exclusive rights to sell the Bothell, WA-based biotech firm’s experimental drug for Hodgkin’s and other lymphomas in all markets outside the U.S. and Canada. (Luke covered this deal in Seattle last month<\/a>.) The deal shows how Millennium, with the financial backing and global reach of its parent Takeda, has risen in the ranks of potential collaborators in the biopharmaceutical game.<\/p>\n

Takeda is looking to Millennium to lead the expansion of its oncology business, which already features Millennium’s big-selling multiple myeloma drug bortezomib (Velcade). In addition to the Seattle Genetics deal, Millennium executives played a key role last spring in doing due diligence for and negotiating Takeda’s buyout of Irvine, CA-based IDM Pharma<\/a>, says Dan Curran, vice president of corporate development at Millennium. This week, Takeda is beginning European sales of mifamurtide (Mepact), a bone cancer therapy developed by IDM, he noted.<\/p>\n

In Seattle Genetics, Millennium has found a partner with which it has a long history and deep understanding of its technology. Millennium initially began a research collaboration with the Washington biotech in 2003 to evaluate its “empowered” antibody drugs, according to Curran. That relationship was elevated last March, when Millennium paid Seattle Genetics $4 million up front to license the empowered antibody technology for cancer drug development<\/a>. As the name suggests, the drugs are souped-up antibodies. The firm’s technology links antibodies, which are ideal for homing in on proteins on the surface of cancer cells, to toxins that are intended to destroy cancer cells.<\/p>\n

Millennium knows what it is like to be in Seattle Genetics’s shoes, trying to bring its first drug to market and relying on a larger corporate partner in order to tap foreign markets. In fact, Millennium partnered with a unit of the healthcare products giant …Next Page »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Life Sciences, Antibodies, R&D Ryan McBride wrote: Millennium is playing the role of global development and marketing partner to Seattle Genetics, something that would have been tricky for Cambridge, MA-based Millennium to nail before it became the cancer R&D arm of Japanese drug giant Takeda Pharmaceutical Company in May 2008. Last month, Millennium closed a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2829,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2829"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}