Anacor Strikes Acne Deal With Medicis

Palo Alto, CA-based Anacor Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ANAC]]) said today it has formed a research collaboration with Scottsdale, AZ-based Medicis Pharmaceutical (NYSE: [[ticker:MRX]]) to discover and develop boron-based small molecule drugs against acne. Anacor will get $7 million upfront, and could get milestone payments of as much as $153 million. Anacor went public back in November, raising $60 million.

Author: Luke Timmerman

Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.