Velcade's true believers

When Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. landed Velcade bortezomib through its 1999 acquisition of LeukoSite Inc. for $635 million, nobody, including Millennium's management, ascribed any value to the program. Even though Velcade was in six Phase I trials, its target - the proteasome - was considered too counter-intuitive.

Eight years later, the drug is the backbone of the company. Last week, FDA announced that it was granting Priority Review for Velcade in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (MM), which involves 20,000 new cases a year in the U.S. alone. ...