Biotech Values

[isolution]

"as well as the several fine posts by isolution on the issue of systemic vs local treatment in AMD"

Thanks Dew, still in your heart, I appreciate.
By the way, I don't recall seeing that PR from Regeneron commented before, anyway it's always better to say it twice than none:

"Form 8-K for REGENERON PHARMACEUTICALS INC 11-Jan-2005

Entry Material Agreement, Other Events, Financial Statements and Ex

Item 1.01 Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement
On January 7, 2005, the Company and Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. entered into a Second Amendment (the "Second Amendment") to their Collaboration Agreement dated as of September 5, 2003 (the "Collaboration Agreement"). The parties excluded from the scope of the Collaboration Agreement the development and commercialization of the VEGF Trap for eye diseases through local delivery systems . Sanofi-aventis agreed to make a one-time payment to the Company of $25 million, of which fifty percent is repayable to sanofi-aventis following commercialization of the VEGF Trap.

The foregoing description of the Second Amendment is qualified in its entirety by the full text of the Second Amendment which is included as Exhibit 10.1 to this Current Report on Form 8-K and is incorporated herein by reference.

Item 8.01 Other Events
On January 10, 2005, the Company announced that sanofi-aventis reaffirmed its commitment to develop the VEGF Trap in oncology in collaboration with the Company. In addition, the Company announced that it would reclaim exclusive rights to develop and commercialize the VEGF Trap for eye diseases through local delivery systems. The Company and sanofi-aventis do not currently intend to pursue development of systemic delivery of the VEGF Trap for eye disease."

Sincerely, for such a small PR, I've never seen a company in the field insisting so much on local drug delivery, all of the players in the field (Oxigene, Eyetech, Alcon, Allergan, SiRNA...) have made the choice for local DD and pursue research in the field for an alternative to needlestick,...except Genaera, but I've never seen such density of "local DD for eye diseases" (ie ratio between number of citations and size of the PR)...except I maybe...

Best