BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - AstraZeneca plc went through a hyperactive round last week of licensing and acquisitions, sealing deals worth $650 million.

That included a potential $500 million deal with Argenta Discovery Ltd. to identify improved bronchodilators to treat the underserved indication of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and $150 million cash acquisition of Arrow Therapeutics Ltd., an antiviral specialist. (See related story, page 2.) Those deals followed a $310 million agreement with Palatin Technologies Inc., of Cranberry, N.J., in obesity.

The agreement with Argenta seals that company's transition from its roots as a drug discovery services supplier to respiratory diseases specialist. "Obviously, this is a transforming deal for Argenta, so we're very pleased," Chris Ashton, CEO, told BioWorld International.

The Harlow, UK-based company will get $21 million up front, plus committed research funding and preclinical milestone payments. Currently, the research is preclinical: to reach the full $500 million will require a drug to reach the market and achieve sales targets.

Under the arrangement with AstraZeneca, a team of scientists from the two companies will collaborate to identify long-acting muscarinic antagonists and dual acting muscarinic antagonist-beta2 agonist compounds. London-based AstraZeneca will be responsible for the development and commercialization of any products.

Ashton said that Argenta's knowledge of the targets, linked to its medicinal chemistry skills, will mean molecules coming out of the collaboration would be superior to existing bronchodilator drugs, with greater duration of action and a better side-effect profile. It is expected the first candidate will enter clinical trials in 2008.

Argenta intends to use the proceeds from the AstraZeneca deal to further develop its in-house portfolio. The lead product, ADC4022, a steroid enhancer, entered a Phase I trial in October 2006.

"That has been successful, and we hope to enter Phase II in the next quarter," Ashton said. "We could have Phase IIa data by the end of the year. There are not a lot of anti-inflammatory products [for treating COPD], and this could be of tremendous value for the company."

There are two other collaborations around Argenta's COPD expertise. One with domain antibody specialist Domantis Ltd., of Waltham, Mass., is going ahead following Domantis' recent acquisition by GlaxoSmithKline plc., of London. The second, with the Indian pharmaceutical company Dr Reddy's Laboratories, involves the joint development of an anti-inflammatory compound.

Argenta was formed in August 2000 by a management buyout involving a team of 26 scientists then working for Aventis Pharma AG. The company raised $10.4 million on founding, and in-licensed cancer and diabetes targets from Imperial College in London as the focus of its in-house discovery efforts.

In 2004, it merged with Etiologics Ltd., a spinout from the UK Medical Research Council, and the investors put in another $10 million. Etiologics was set up to commercialize mouse models of human disease, but moved into respiratory diseases a year after its formation when it acquired the preclinical respiratory diseases group of Bayer AG. That led Argenta to park its cancer and diabetes research and focus on respiratory diseases.