February 05, 2003
One year after Pharmacopeia (NASDAQ: PCOP) shareholders rejected the proposed acquisition of private company Eos Biotechnology, Protein Design Labs (NASDAQ: PDLI) announced that it would acquire Eos. While the Pharmacopeia acquisition valued Eos at $197 million, the PDLI acquisition values the company at $37.5 million. The difference in valuation illustrates the difficult time that small platform technology companies like Eos have had over the past year.
In spite of its apparent loss of valuation, Eos has had a fairly successful year since the demise of the Pharmacopeia merger. Its major accomplishment was the filing of an IND for a monoclonal antibody angiogenesis inhibitor for the treatment of solid tumors.
PDLI is a leader in developing monoclonal antibody therapeutics. PDLI’s technology platform is based on the “humanization” of monoclonal antibodies, a process by which therapeutic antibodies are engineered to be more similar to human antibodies. This theoretically makes them better tolerated by patients. PDLI’s technology has been used to engineer several marketed and many developmental antibodies. However, PDLI’s internal drug development program has had some recent disappointments, including poor results of Zenapax for psoriasis, poor phase II Remitogen results, and poor Zamyl data.
Eos has the potential to supplement PDLI’s new drug development efforts. Eos uses DNA microarrays to define targets for drugs, with a focus on targets (antigens) for monoclonal antibody drugs. Eos may not only find new targets for PDLI, but it also brings a strong set of programs already underway. Besides the solid tumor drug, Eos is developing a drug for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and is developing a reported 20 anti-cancer targets. Assuming that this Eos acquisition is realized, PDLI will have strengthened its drug development platform.
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