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Aptamers: Two Deals Down, One Big Deal Up

Two aptamer deals died in March--Corgentech's with Bristol after the key project failed in Phase III and Dynavax's with UCB, after the Belgian company re-thought its commitment. Meanwhile, Coley signed a giant alliance with Pfizer, big enough, the biotech hopes, to allow it to go public. But the technology's still too early to justify Pfizer's acquiring Coley the way it's acquired Angiosyn, Idun, and Esperion.

The aptamer world in March received two contradictory signals. On the down side, Corgentech Inc. 's edifoligide aptamer failed its Phase III vein-graft prevention trial to prevent vein graft failure—and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. understandably backed out of the two companies' commercial collaboration [See Deal], a $250 million co-promotion which had enabled Corgentech's highly successful IPO [See Deal]. The news wasn't entirely unexpected: in December, Corgentech had announced equally unappealing results from another Phase III trial [See Deal].

Meanwhile, UCB Group backed out of its allergy deal with Dynavax Technologies Corp. over the biotech's allergy project [See Deal].

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