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Isis Pharmaceuticals Seals Deal With 3rd Foreign Firm

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SAN DIEGO COUNTY BUSINESS EDITOR

Isis Pharmaceuticals, a 2-year-old biotechnology company that is trying to develop products to treat cancer and certain viral diseases, announced a multimillion-dollar cooperative agreement with a major Japanese drug company, its third major deal with an outside drug concern in two months.

Isis Pharmaceuticals will join with Eisai Co. Ltd. of Tokyo to develop human diagnostic and therapeutic products for a “mutually selected molecular disease target.” Eisai will fund the research and development in exchange for limited rights to market the products developed, including exclusive rights to market drugs in Japan.

Isis, whose headquarters are in Carlsbad, would not disclose the specific diseases being targeted by the joint venture nor the precise amount that Eisai will invest in the form of option fees, research funding and milestone payments. However, sources said the amount is less than $10 million.

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In late October, Isis Pharmaceuticals announced that Ciba-Geigy, a Swiss pharmaceuticals giant, had agreed to invest more than $30 million in a joint venture with the company to develop drugs to combat certain inflammatory diseases and cancers. Terms of the deal called for Ciba-Geigy to receive slightly more than 10% of Isis Pharmaceuticals stock in addition to exclusive international rights to market whatever drugs the venture develops.

In November, Isis Pharmaceuticals’ second strategic relationship was announced, a deal with Rhone-Poulenc of France to develop drugs to treat unspecified cancers. Financial terms of the deal with the French firm were not disclosed.

Although Eisai is getting no Isis Pharmaceuticals stock, it does have the right to place its scientists on the Isis staff. Eisai, whose revenues last year were about $1.5 billion, is one of the five largest drug companies in Japan, with more than 4,000 employees, Isis Pharmaceuticals Vice President Larry Botticelli said Tuesday.

Isis Pharmaceuticals, founded in 1989, is pursuing therapeutic and diagnostic drugs based on anti-sense oligonucleatides. The organic molecules work to inhibit the formation of disease-causing cells by binding to or obstructing the “messenger molecules” produced by human DNA, which cause production of disease-bearing proteins.

Isis Pharmaceuticals’ founder and chief executive is Stanley Crooke, who formerly headed drug development programs at Smith-Kline Beckman and Bristol-Myers. Isis Pharmaceuticals’ payroll now totals 60 employees, a number that will increase to 100 by the end of 1991, Botticelli said.

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