Anyone doubting Merck's willingness to take out its checkbook to buy in fresh talent and new technology should check out today's announcement: The drug giant has acquired two biotech companies for a collective $480 million. GlycoFi, which specializes in yeast glycoengineering to produce proteins, fetched $400 million while Abmaxis is being acquired for $80 million. Santa Clara, CA-based Abmaxis optimizes and humanizes antibodies.
"GlycoFi's technology combined with Merck's yeast expression capabilities could lead to a more effective platform for the manufacture of therapeutic proteins and vaccines," said Peter S. Kim, Ph.D., president, Merck Research Laboratories. For Merck, it's also a welcome change of topic for a company that is mired in Vioxx lawsuits and claims it routinely ignored patient safety in order to achieve top-line sales growth. Merck clearly has more deals in the pipeline as well.
- here's the AP report on Merck's acquisitions