Biotech Day in Review: Wyeth and AstraZeneca Sign More Deals

Wyeth (WYE) will collaborate with MediVas, a privately held San Diego biomaterials company, to develop a new drug for hemophilia. The goal will be to extend the duration of therapeutic effect for recombinant factor treatments.

MediVas will use its proprietary polymer-based drug delivery system to develop the drug. MediVas will receive milestones and royalties, though specific details were not disclosed.

Wyeth also entered a partnership with Nautilus Biotech of France to discover novel recombinant Factor IX proteins for the treatment of hemophilia B. As with the MediVas partnership, the goal is to discover proteins with a longer duration of action. All financial details were kept under wraps.

And, Wyeth also signed a deal worth a potential $110 million with elbion NV, a biotech located in Belgium, to develop a PDE10 inhibitor for schizophrenia and psychosis. In addition to underwriting research on the compound, Wyeth will pay royalties if the drug is commercialized. Wyeth edged 3 cents lower to $50.43.

AstraZeneca (AZN) continued its rapid-fire series of partnership announcements that aim at building the pipeline for the big pharma. This time, AstraZeneca signed a non-exclusive license with Regneron (REGN) for up to $120 million to use the latter company’s VelocImmune technology to discover human monoclonal antibodies. Regeneron will receive $20 million upfront and five $20 million annual payments, though the last two payments are subject to a termination agreement. Regeneron will also receive a single-digit royalty on any commercials antibodies that emerge from the deal. AstraZeneca rose 14 cents to $58.85, but Regeneron fell 72 cents (3.6%) to $19.46.

Arena Pharma (ARNA) has completed enrollment in a 3,182 patient Phase III trial for its obesity drug. The two-year trial is the first of three Phase III trials that the drug will undergo. The first newsflow from this endeavor will be a month-six review of echocardiograms, which will take place in Q3 of 2007. Once the data is in hand, Arena will be told whether it is safe to continue the trial. The endpoint for the trial is the percentage of patients who experience of weight loss of at least 5%. Arena traded 18 cents higher to $12.90.

SciClone Pharma (SCLN) will speed up its development work on SCV-07, starting a Phase II dose-ranging trial of the compound against serious viral infectious diseases. SciClone acquired the drug from a Russian biotech, Verta, Ltd., which did much of the early development of the drug. SciClone added on 5 cents to end at $2.85.

ImClone (IMCL) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) have asked for approval in Japan of Erbitux for advanced colorectal cancer. ImClone was off by 28 cents at $29.48, but BMS inched up 9 cents to $28.73.

Columbia Labs (CBRX) said that Progesterone failed a Phase III trial as a drug to prevent preterm births in women who had already had one preterm birth. There was no significant difference between the progesterone cohort and the placebo arm. The news was devastating to Columbia Labs, which lost 68% of its value, falling $3.13 to $1.48.

Biotech, like the stock market in general, started off the week trading in a narrow range, but with a downward bias. The Centient Biotech 200™ fell 12 points to 4055, a loss of .29%. The S&P 500 was down .10% and Nasdaq was lower by .21%.

Disclosure: none.