Merck Acquires Abmaxis and GlycoFi

Merck has announced a pair of acquisitions. The company will acquire Santa Clara, CA-based Abmaxis, Inc. for $80 million in cash. Abmaxis is known for its antibody engineering technology platform, Abmaxis in-silico Immunization (AISIM), which enables structure-centric computational design followed by experimental selection of optimized human or humanized monoclonal antibodies. Merck will acquire 100% of the equity of Abmaxis, making Abmaxis a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck.

In a larger transaction, Merck has also acquired GlycoFi, Inc., a privately held biotechnology company with expertise in the field of yeast glycoengineering and optimization of biologic drug molecules. Merck will acquire 100% of the equity of GlycoFi in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $400 million.

GlycoFi is based in Lebanon, NH and has about 55 employees. Glycoengineering provides the ability to make proteins such as monoclonal antibodies with pre-specified and defined human carbohydrate side chains. The ability to make such proteins in yeast has advantages of speed, cost and quality over current methods. This technology could significantly enhance the ability of Merck scientists to discover, develop and produce novel drugs in many therapeutic areas, such as oncology, as well as novel vaccines for infectious diseases.

“Our acquisition of Abmaxis provides Merck with the opportunity to optimize and humanize antibodies, as well as to discover new antibodies,” said Peter S. Kim, Ph.D., president, Merck Research Laboratories. “This, coupled with Merck’s own industry-leading capabilities in yeast expression technology and our acquisition of GlycoFi and its complementary technologies, positions us to become a significant player in the important and growing field of biologic drugs.”

Both transactions are expected to close in the second quarter of 2006.