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Local Biotech Firms Vie for Business at BIO 2002

Local Biotech Firms Vie for Business at BIO 2002

Pfizer Ends Corvas Deal for Anti-Inflammatory Compound

BIO-TECH by Marion Webb, Senior Staff Writer

San Diego’s biotechnology exhibitors were facing stiff competition for business at this year’s annual Biotechnology Industry Organization conference in Toronto.

More than 1,000 exhibitors from 52 countries came to Canada from June 9 through June 12 vying for biotech business and many sporting some nifty giveaways.

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. of San Diego lured passersby with its techie-design mint box and purple surfboard key chain/bottle opener.

“They’ve been a hit,” said Michael Watts, director of investor relations at Ligand as he nodded approvingly to a visitor snatching up a trinket.

Behind him streamed a company video campaign featuring David Robinson, Ligand’s president, CEO and chairman.

Watts said the event was ideal for solidifying existing relationships and establishing new ones.

It offered companies the opportunity to pre-arrange meetings with other companies they were interested in doing business with.

It also enabled selected companies to give a presentation in front of potential investors.

Andrea Lynn, marketing manager for Immusol in San Diego, said the biotech company invested some $10,000 to set up shop at BIO 2002 hoping to attract business opportunities.

Lynn agreed with Watts who said, “This forum allows you to meet with people you wouldn’t otherwise meet.”

More than 15,000 visitors attended this year’s BIO conference. Exhibitors included not only biotech firms, but law firms, equipment makers, countries, nations and regions.

Kristina Peterson, a spokeswoman for Carlsbad-based Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc., said the magnitude of the event makes it “a great place to get visibility.”

Isis and Biocom, San Diego’s industry trade group for life science companies, had neighboring booths.

Joseph Panetta, president and CEO of Biocom, said he was elated to hear financial experts say that money would flow back into the biotech sector soon.

News of the arrest of troubled biotech ImClone Systems Inc.’s former president and CEO Samuel Waksal, and congressional testimony over allegations of insider trading and other issues didn’t exactly help renew investors’ confidence in biotech stocks, he said.

Biotech stocks have been sharply down this year in part because the ImClone debacle has left investors wary of company claims.

Steven Burrill, CEO of Burrill & Co., a San Francisco-based life sciences merchant bank, told audience members Sam Waksal has become the poster child for everything that’s wrong in the industry.

Biocom hopes to pre-empt bad news in San Diego through a planned ethics program for its biotech execs. Half a dozen people on Biocom’s board of directors are presently working on putting together the program.

“We want to better equip companies to assure investors that they are being ethical in their business practices,” Panetta said.

Larry Stambaugh, chairman and CEO of Maxim Pharmaceuticals Inc. will lead the effort, Panetta added.

Maxim hopes to win Food and Drug Administration approval for a cancer compound that is currently being tested in Phase III trials.

In 1999, the FDA dismissed a late-stage study by the company as “poorly executed and inconclusive.”

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Pfizer Ends Corvas Deal: San Diego-based biotech firm Corvas International Inc. said Pfizer Inc. will return worldwide developmental and marketing rights for its anti-inflammatory compound after it failed to show an effect in acute ischemic stroke patients during Phase IIb trials.

Corvas received $4.4 million in milestone payments out of a total $31.4 million in potential milestone payments.

Corvas expected Pfizer’s pullout given the disappointing previously reported preliminary results from the study.

Corvas plans to analyze data to see if the compound warrants further studies.

Corvas stock closed at $2.45 on June 17 following the announcement from June 14.

Send biotech news to

mwebb@sdbj.com.

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