Embattled Tysabri maker Biogen Idec announced an agreement yesterday with biopharmaceutical company Protein Design Labs to purchase a multiple sclerosis drug and two other experimental products for approximately $800 million.
As part of the deal, Biogen will initially pay Protein Design $40 million and purchase $100 million of stock from the Fremont, Calif. company.
The agreement covers Protein Design’s experimental multiple sclerosis drug daclizumab, which is in Phase II trials. Biogen will also gain rights to a cancer treatment called volociximab, being tested in patients with skin, kidney and pancreatic cancers, and a third drug, Huzaf, being studied in the treatment of Crohn’s disease.
Biogen Idec is continuing with a review of its own multiple sclerosis drug Tysabri. The drug was voluntarily removed from the market in March after being linked to deaths from progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, a rare neurological disease most often found in patients with compromised immune systems.
Biogen Idec and Elan told MM&M earlier this year it expects to issue a decision on Tysabri in the second half of 2005.