Irvine cancer drug maker Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. last month dropped work on a drug as another one brought in some dividends.
Spectrum said it received $16 million from two Asian companies it’s working with to develop a bladder cancer drug, apaziquone.
The company, which has yearly sales of about $40 million, got $15 million from Japan’s Nippon Kayaku Co. and $1 million from Handok Pharmaceuticals Co., a South Korean drug maker.
Nippon Kayaku works with Spectrum in Asia outside South Korea, which is Handok’s territory.
Spectrum works with fellow Irvine drug maker Allergan Inc. to develop apaziquone for North America and Europe.
Under terms of the deals with Allergan and the other drug makers, Spectrum could receive more than $450 million in payments based on hitting clinical, regulatory and commercialization milestones for apaziquone.
Also last month, Spectrum said it was stopping work on ozarelix, a drug to treat benign enlarged prostate glands.
Chief Executive Rajesh Shrotriya said the company expected to save $40 million budgeted for clinical trials and other costs by dropping further work on the drug.
Spectrum said mixed results of an earlier second-phase study, along with the recently announced failure of a similar drug being developed by Canada’s Aeterna Zentaris Inc., didn’t support continued development of ozarelix.
Spectrum received a license to develop and market ozarelix in 2004.
The drug maker also said that the Food and Drug Administration told it that it wouldn’t be required to run new clinical trials for its Fusilev drug as it tries to gain expanded approval for colon cancer. Spectrum already sells Fusilev, its first commercial drug, to treat osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.
Abbott’s AMO Expectations
Abbott Laboratories, a Chicago device and drug maker, expects its Santa Ana-based Abbott Medical Optics Inc. unit to have more than $1 billion in sales during the current year, analysts and investors were told on the company’s most recent conference call.
Abbott Medical makes eye surgery devices and contact lens care solutions.
Abbott, which bought the former Advanced Medical Optics Inc. for $2.8 billion last year, also updated the status of the Synchrony accommodating intraocular lens for cataract patients. Synchrony is designed to mimic the natural eye’s ability to change focus.
“Synchrony is on the market in Europe and we anticipate U.S. approval in 2011 based on the likely timing of panel review in the second half of this year,” said John Thomas, Abbott’s vice president of investor relations.
Abbott got Synchrony last fall, when it spent $400 million for Irvine startup Visiogen Inc., Synchrony’s creator.
As for the fourth quarter, Abbott said that Abbott Medical accounted for $317 million in revenue, compared to $285.2 million in 2008’s fourth quarter, when it was still a separate public company.
Competitor Going Public
A small Massachusetts-based company that competes with Abbott and Brea-based Beckman Coulter Inc. is sticking a toe in the public waters.
BG Medicine Inc., a maker of diagnostic tests, said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it planned to sell up to $86.3 million worth of stock in an initial public offering. BG didn’t set a share price, disclose how many shares it would sell or set a date for the offering.
The company mainly focuses on biotechnology-based tests in molecular diagnostics, which involves genetic testing to identify disease or a predisposition for a disease.
Its lead product is a heart failure detector called BGM Galectin-3, which measures a protein found in blood plasma or serum.
BG said it planned to use proceeds to fund the commercial launch of BGM Galectin-3. BG, quoting independent market research firm Kalorama Information of Rockville, Md., said that the global market for in-vitro diagnostics is projected to reach $56 billion in 2012, up from $47 billion in 2007.
Bits and Pieces:
NuRx Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Irvine is being acquired by QuantRx Biomedical Corp. of Doylestown, Pa., for an undisclosed price. QuantRx, which sells diagnostic testing products, said the deal was an all-stock one that resulted in a combined company that will retain the QuantRx name. Harin Padma-Nathan, NuRx’s chief executive and sole employee, will become QuantRx’s president … ChromaDex Corp., an Irvine-based company, said that it was now using an analytical instrument made by Agilent Technologies Inc. to better detect trace elements in food products. ChromaDex makes research tools for dietary supplements and the food and beverage industries … Irvine database maker Healthcare Data Solutions Inc. introduced PrescriberPRO Mobile, a “smartphone” application that provides information about doctor’s offices, dentists, hospitals and pharmacies throughout the U.S. … Phil Kaplan, chief operating officer of Irvine medical software maker Quality Systems Inc., recently participated in the Executive Leadership Track event put on by the University of California, Irvine’s chapter of Hillel, a Jewish student organization.
