Millennium: Broadening the funnel

Large-scale DNA sequencing and gene identification are the foundation of Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s expertise, so it is not intuitively obvious why the company would do deals with other companies in these areas, as it did last week with Incyte Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Lexicon Genetics Inc.

But as MLNM needs ever more targets for its pharmaceutical partners and its own internal drug discovery efforts, the company is focusing on those steps in the research process to which it can add the most value (see BioCentury, Sept. 13). Thus even though it has expertise in DNA sequencing and gene identification, the company has decided to outsource those upstream steps, at least in part, while concentrating on the downstream process of gene characterization, target validation and preclinical testing...