Abbott's rebound relationship

If Abbott Laboratories had succeeded last year in its attempted acquisition of Alza Corp., it would have added a strong presence in the drug delivery and urology markets. But that effort failed after ABT and AZA (Mountain View, Calif.) failed to reach a deal with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Now, nearly a year after the demise of the AZA deal, ABT has opted for a very different course with its proposed $6.9 billion cash purchase of the pharmaceutical division of BASF AG, including Knoll AG. The deal - which proves that the same suitor can be happy with very different brides - will bolster ABT's existing neuroscience, cardiovascular and metabolic franchises while opening up new therapeutic development options via Knoll's antibody technology.

ABT (Abbott Park, Ill.) plans to apply Knoll's MAb technology across multiple therapeutic areas, including those where ABT does not have an existing presence. For example, a high profile compound in Knoll's portfolio is D2E7, a human anti-TNF-alpha MAb that entered Phase III trials for rheumatoid arthritis in February. ABT believes that D2E7, which Knoll licensed from Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc (LSE:CAT, Melbourn, U.K.), will give it a new franchise in the autoimmune and inflammatory arena. ...