Momenta, Baxter Team Up on Biosimilars

Illinois-based Baxter International (NYSE: [[ticker:BAX]]) is tapping into Cambridge, MA-based Momenta Pharmaceuticals’ abilities as a generic drugmaker in a new collaboration deal focused on developing so-called biosimilars, or knockoffs of biologic drugs.

Momenta (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MNTA]]) will receive $33 million upfront in the deal, according to an announcement yesterday, and could receive another $419 million in potential milestones and option fees. The companies will develop up to six biosimilar compounds under the agreement.

Last year Momenta nabbed FDA approval for a generic version of Sanofi’s anti-clotting drug enoxaparin (Lovenox). That product is being marketed by Sandoz. And the FDA is currently reviewing Momenta’s generic form of  glatiramer, a multiple sclerosis drug marketed today by Teva Pharmaceuticals under the brand name Copaxone.

The Momenta-Baxter deal is the latest we’ve reported in a string of activity around biosimilars. Just this week, Thousand Oaks, CA-based Amgen (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMGN]]), which has R&D operations in Cambridge, announced a $400 million partnership with New Jersey’s Watson Pharmaceuticals to develop biosimilar cancer drugs. Earlier this month, Weston, MA-based Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: [[ticker:BIIB]]) and Korean conglomerate Samsung formed a $300 million joint venture focused on biosimilars. And Merck (NYSE: [[ticker:MRK]]) has been fine-tuning its own biosimilars strategy in preparation for guidelines the FDA is expected to release on how to develop the generic biotech drugs.

Author: Erin Kutz

Erin Kutz has a background in covering business, politics and general news. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Erin previously worked in the Boston bureau of Reuters, where she wrote articles on the investment management and mutual fund industries. While in college, she researched for USA Today reporter Jayne O’Donnell’s book, Gen Buy: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail. She also spent a semester in Washington, DC, reporting Capitol Hill stories as a correspondent for two Connecticut newspapers and interning in the Money section of USA Today, where she assisted with coverage on the retail and small business beats. Erin got her first taste of reporting at Boston University’s independent student newspaper, as a city section reporter and fact checker and editor of the paper’s weekly business section.