BioCentury
ARTICLE | Strategy

Monetizing profoundly

September 10, 2001 7:00 AM UTC

Maxygen Inc. is not the first company that comes to mind when thinking about extended release drug delivery, but the company is beginning to see dividends from its acquisition last year of a protein modification platform for directed pegylation and gylcosylation. Indeed, last week's deal with InterMune Inc. to develop second generation interferon gamma products essentially could cover the cost of MAXY's $66 million stock purchase of ProFound Pharma A/S, which developed the technology.

The protein modification platform from ProFound (Copenhagen, Denmark) involves examining a protein's structure and using combinatorial chemistry to make site-specific modifications of PEG or end-linked glycosylation sites away from the active site. The resulting proteins are first screened for retention of potency, and then are assessed for stability and other improved functions. ...