On April 29, cancer therapeutics firm Genta (Berkeley Heights, NJ) and Aventis (Frankfurt, Germany) announced an agreement to jointly develop and commercialize Genta's lead antisense therapeutic, Genasense. The deal provides Genta with $480 million in cash, equity, milestones, and convertible debt—the second-highest amount a large life science company has ever paid for a single biotech drug. Analysts say the high price boosts Genta as a business and further validates antisense as a technology, and deny that it is a sign of desperation on the part of Aventis to fill its depleted pipeline.
Genasense would be the first oncology drug to use an antisense mechanism to target mRNA in the apoptotic pathway. It reduces the production of Bcl-2, a protein that is expressed in over 70% of all cancers and is known to block the effects of chemotherapy. The drug's ability to enhance the effectiveness of chemotherapy (by promoting apoptosis) is being tested in patients with melanoma, multiple myeloma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and phase 3 trials are expected to be completed in summer 2002, with a launch anticipated in the third quarter of 2003. Analysts at Needham & Co. (New York) say Genta has positioned itself well by choosing a highly relevant target and testing it for 12 indications—a huge potential market justifying the value of the deal. Genasense is also expected to be developed for use in prostate, lung, and breast cancer, given the use of Aventis's best-selling cancer chemotherapy Taxotere in these lucrative markets. If successful, the drug could rake in $500 million per year, analysts say.
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