ImClone Systems Inc (formerly IMCL)

[yaya704]

WHAT DOES THIS SAY ABOUT MERCK KGAA'S BIDDING FOR IMCL-

1. NON-EVENT
2. THEY ARE OUT OF THE BIDDING
3. THEY ARE IN THE BIDDING AND CUTTING THEIR WORKFORCE IN USA
4. NONE OF THE ABOVE.



Durham drug company to lay off 42


Aug 29, 2006 : 7:43 pm ET

DURHAM -- The Durham drug development firm EMD Pharmaceuticals will lay off 42 employees as the company halves its local work force following the failure of a potential Parkinson's disease therapy in late-stage testing.

EMD, which has its U.S. headquarters in Durham, notified employees last week of the pending layoffs, which will take place over the last four months of this year, said Gilda Thomas, EMD's general counsel.

About 41 employees will remain after the layoffs, she said.

The job cuts come two months after the company announced disappointing results from two Phase III studies of Sarizotan, a potential Parkinson's disease treatment.

The studies did not confirm the positive results reflected in the therapy's Phase II or preclinical results, EMD said in a June 23 release. The company said in the release that it would not pursue development of the therapy.

With the company's next lead compound still early in the development cycle, EMD decided to cut jobs, Thomas said.

"The next near-term product is so many years in the future it did not make any sense to be staffed the way we are staffed," she said.

The firm's work force has been slowly shrinking over the past two years after reaching about 100 employees in 2002 at EMD's office in the SouthCourt building on Shannon Road.

The failure of Sarizotan also raises the question of whether EMD still needs the 109 acres it bought in Treyburn Corporate Park in 2002. The site was purchased as the likely home for EMD's corporate headquarters if its business -- drug development -- went as expected.

But things have not gone as well as the company hoped when it came to Durham in 1999. In 2003, three of EMD's experimental therapies failed to show efficacy in clinical testing and the company dropped development of a breast cancer vaccine.

While Thomas said no decision had been made on the company's site in Treyburn, she didn't sound hopeful.

"We really haven't gotten to the point of making a decision on that property," she said.

The company also has an operation in the Boston area where some 40 employees work.

EMD is the U.S. face of Merck KGaA, which is based in Darmstadt, Germany. Merck KGaA was the parent company of New Jersey-based Merck & Co. until World War I, when the U.S. government seized the company's American assets.

The two companies never reunited and Merck KGaA is not allowed to use the Merck name in the United States.


Sentiment : Hold