Merck, Codexis extend collaboration three more years

Codexis Inc. said Tuesday it has signed a three-year extension on a collaboration agreement with Merck & Co. Inc.
The deal is related to Codexis' catalyst and process development of enzymes used in pharmaceutical manufacturing. The collaboration is in its sixth year.

Merck unit, Numerate ink heart drug design deal

A subsidiary of drug giant Merck and Numerate Inc., a San Bruno company tapping algorithms in drug design, will work together to find potential drug leads for a cardiovascular disease.

Exelixis reaps $12M up front in licensing deal with Merck

Merck & Co. will pay $12 million up front to license an anti-inflammatory drug program from Exelixis Inc. — a deal that ultimately could be worth up to $251 million.
The PI3K-delta program, led by the preclinical drug XL-499, targets transfer enzymes, known as kinases, that are expressed in immune system cells. When PI3K-delta is activated incorrectly, researchers believe, it contributes to inflammatory and allergic disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis and allergic asthma.

Drug deal gives Biogen a stake in Portola Pharmaceuticals

Biogen Idec will license a family of drugs that could treat lupus or rheumatoid arthritis from Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc. for $36 million cash and $9 million in Portola equity.
The agreement could be worth up to $508.5 million more in development and milestone payments.
The deal links two of the biggest biotech dealmakers of the past several years, South San Francisco’s Portola and Biogen Idec’s George Scangos. Portola has negotiated deals with Novartis AG and Merck & Co. (though Merck returned the anti-clotting drug earlier this year), while Scangos cut a number of licensing deals — albeit on the other side of the fence — as CEO of South San Francisco’s Exelixis Inc.

Stanford finds targets stroke

Stanford University researchers found a potential target for limiting the devastating effects of stroke. Now they must wait and see if a drug developer takes the bait.
Like the discovery of other potential stroke treatments, the finding could prove tough to replicate in humans. That difficulty and serious side effects have proved to be barriers that have led drug-development companies to largely swear off stroke drugs.

One-on-one with former Merck strategy officer Merv Turner, on the BioExec Institute

It’s pretty clear from its name — the BioExec Institute — that the University of California, Berkeley, program is for biotech industry executives.
The program of three two-day modules — Oct. 5-6, Nov. 2-3 and Dec. 7-8 — aims to connect vice president-level biotech managers with proven life sciences and venture capital industry veterans. Among the speakers this year are Merv Turner, the recently retired Merck & Co. chief strategy officer, as well as Kristin Peck, executive vice president of worldwide business development and innovation at Pfizer Inc.; and James Topper, general partner of Frazier Healthcare Ventures.
Turner’s perspective, for one, is particularly sought after. He started at Merck Research Laboratories in 1985, eventually becoming senior vice president of worldwide licensing and external research and Merck’s first chief strategy officer.
I spoke recently with Turner about the BioExec program and his views, from the comfort and safety of Big Pharma retirement, of the drug-development industry.

Merck to shutter Mission Bay R&D center

Merck & Co. will close its Mission Bay research center, eliminating 50 jobs and moving another 10 positions to other facilities.
Merck (NYSE: MRK) was the first large life sciences companies to move into San Francisco’s biotech enclave as it bought Sirna Therapeutics in late 2006 for $1.1 billion. Merck planned to double its Sirna unit’s footprint in Mission Bay, and its space reached as much as 66,000 square feet at Alexandria Real Estate Equities ’ 1700 Owens St.
But those growth plans were never fulfilled, Likewise, RNA interference technology, which essentially turns off genes that lead to disease, has yet to take off as hyped. Still, Merck spokesman Ian McConnell said Friday that the company continues to invest significantly in RNAi technology.

Big NIH grant awards show Bay Area still at center of HIV fight

The Bay Area continues to innovate at the center of the fight against HIV, winning a couple of major National Institutes of Health grants aimed at HIV reservoirs.
Dr. Steven Deeks and Dr. Mike McCune of the University of California, San Francisco , will work with Rafick-Pierre Sekaly of the Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute of Florida to define the nature and location of reservoirs — cells where HIV may be undetectable for years — and how those reservoirs are created and maintained. What's more, researchers will develop and test targeted treatments that eliminate HIV reservoirs without broadly activating the immune system, which could activate the virus.
Sangamo BioSciences Inc. (NASDAQ: SGMO) of Richmond will work with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle as part of a $20 million project to develop proteins that directly attack HIV reservoirs. Researchers also will study whether a patient’s immune cells can be made resistant to the virus.

Roche Molecular Diagnostics, Merck ink cancer assay deal

Roche Molecular Diagnostics will develop diagnostic assays for Merck & Co. that will help the drug giant developer cancer drugs.
Financial terms of the deal between Pleasanton-based Roche Molecular Diagnostics and Merck (NYSE: MRK) were not disclosed.

InSite Vision, Merck, Pfizer sue Sandoz over generic eye drug

Alameda-based InSite Vision said Thursday it joined Merck and Pfizer in suing Sandoz over an antibiotic drug for eye, AzaSite, for which Sandoz is seeking FDA marketing approval.

Genentech, Merck join forces to sell hepatitis C drug regimen

Genentech Inc. and Merck & Co. will combine forces to sell and promote a new three-drug, hepatitis C-fighting regimen in the United States and possibly abroad.
The companies did not disclose the value of the deal, but it centers on Merck’s (NYSE: MRK) recently approved chronic hepatitis C treatment, Victrelis, or boceprevir.

Scrappy Portola ready for new fight on blood thinner

In the street fight known as drug development, Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc. just got bloodied.
Yet even as partner Merck & Co. ran away from the brawl — saying Thursday that it was returning the blood-thinning drug betrixaban to Portola — the South San Francisco company may be in a position to stanch the bleeding. It has about $100 million on hand, a Phase III-ready drug with solid Phase II data and a deep portfolio that includes an early-stage antidote that could quickly reverse the effects of blood thinners.
To hear Portola CEO Bill Lis, you’d think his company is in a scrappy mood. Portola, he said, even could pursue indications for betrixaban beyond prevention of stroke in atrial fibrillation patients and stopping embolism after knee surgery, with or without a new partner.
“I think we want to take it forward by ourselves,” Lis said.

Merck returns anti-clotting drug betrixaban to Portola

An experimental blood-clotting drug for which Merck & Co. paid $50 million upfront two years ago will be returned to Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Merck (NYSE: MRK) said Thursday that it would give all rights for betrixaban, a Phase III-ready oral Factor Xa inhibitor anticoagulant aimed at preventing strokes in patients with atrial fibrillation, back to South San Francisco-based Portola. The companies said the decision was made after a review of Merck’s investigational drug portfolio.
Portola CEO Bill Lis cast the giveback as a “transformational opportunity.”

Merck plans big biotech push in Palo Alto

Traditional pill maker Merck & Co. Inc. is staking a large part of its future on biotech drugs, and in Palo Alto.

Merck is throwing its cash and brand expertise behind a two-pronged approach — developing its own biotech drugs, as well as biosimilars, or copies of established biotech drugs — as it seeks to make up for lost time. In Palo Alto alone, Merck will hire 30 to 40 researchers this year as it shifts from discovering targets for drugs to discovering the drugs themselves.

Merck to make lupus drug for Anthera