BOSTON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Biogen Idec Inc. (BIIB.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is ready, willing and able to spend billions of dollars to acquire new drugs to help fuel double digit returns over the next five years.
MarJunSepDec Quote Full Chart Company Profile Analyst Research Burt Adelman, the company's executive vice president of development, said on Wednesday that the company, whose growth is currently driven by its drugs for multiple sclerosis and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, will look at drugs in all therapeutic categories.
"Today we are willing to be opportunistic," he said at the Reuters Biotechnology Summit in Boston. "We are willing to look anywhere."
The size of such transactions could reach into the multibillion dollar range but would not likely exceed the size of the $6.4 billion merger between Biogen and Idec in June 2003, he said.
Adelman said the company would like to buy therapies in oncology, neurology and rheumatology, where it either has or expects soon to have products, but he said Biogen needs to take a broader view as fields such as oncology are highly competitive.
Potential therapeutic areas could include products for acute hospital care, antibiotics and gastrointestinal disorders, he said.
"We need to be doing things today and tomorrow and next year to get us to a position by 2010 where you will look back and say they grew that business by 10 percent."
Adelman said the company is ideally looking for products on which it can stamp its own identity, all but ruling out an acquisition of ImClone Systems Inc. (IMCL.O: Quote, Profile, Research), which markets the colorectal cancer drug Erbitux with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY.N: Quote, Profile, Research).
"That's a highly partnered drug," he said. "In light of their relationship with Bristol-Myers, how much room would there be for us to put our own imprint on it? That's why this wouldn't come to the top of our list."
Adelman said that Biogen, which last year conducted a restructuring that cut overhead by about $200 million and 17 percent of its workforce, is debating whether relying on a fully-fledged internal research organization is the way to go.
"Maybe that's not a tenable approach," he said, echoing comments that have been made repeatedly over the past few years by executives in the product-starved pharmaceuticals industry.
Instead, he said, Biogen's research should focus on high-risk opportunities that could make a major impact on a particular disease.
That could be supplemented by the acquisition of new products in the mid-to late stages of development.
Adelman said the company is looking for therapeutics, not platform technologies.
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