Ciba-Geigy to Buy 10% Stake in Carlsbad Biotech Firm

Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Ciba-Geigy said Tuesday that it will invest more than $30 million over the next five years in Isis Pharmaceuticals, a young biotechnology company based in Carlsbad that is developing a series of therapeutic drugs to combat cancer and other diseases.

Ciba-Geigy’s investment will entitle it to slightly more than 10% of Isis Pharmaceuticals’ stock, President Stanley Crooke said Tuesday. The funds will be used to finance molecular research in inflammatory diseases and some cancers that could lead to therapeutic drugs. Crooke declined to be more specific about the diseases the two companies are targeting.

Ciba-Geigy will have exclusive international rights to market any drugs developed through the agreement. The two companies will share U.S. marketing and development rights.

Founded in March, 1989, Isis Pharmaceuticals is one of several U.S. biotechnology companies trying to develop drugs based on antisense oligonucleatides. The organic molecules work to inhibit the formation of disease-causing cells by binding or obstructing the “messenger molecules” produced by human DNA that result in the production of disease-bearing proteins.

The deal is typical of alliances being formed between large drug companies and “innovative younger companies at the frontiers of science,” said James McCamant, editor of Medical Technology Stock Letter published in Berkeley.

One such deal occurred in July, when Glaxo of Great Britain invested $20 million in Gilead Sciences, a Foster City-based company that is also trying to develop antisense compounds, McCamant said.

Before founding Isis, Crooke headed product research operations for SmithKline Beckmann and Bristol-Myers. His company now has 60 employees and will add at least 40 more workers over the next six months, he said. Developing a product could take a decade or more, he said.

Henri Zinsli, Ciba-Geigy’s head of corporate business development, said in a telephone interview from the company’s headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, that Isis Pharmaceuticals was “the leader in this emerging technology . . . based on its potential patent protection base.”