Pfizer Opts for Access Over Exclusivity in Antibodies

01 Oct 2004

For its biggest antibody deal to date, Pfizer choose Medarex, which insists on non-exclusive agreements, leaving the biotech free to work with other partners on any given target. In doing so, Pfizer reckoned that the potential for competition with respect to a particular target was outweighed by the greater access to targets which Medarex's deal model provides.

Over the last several years, Pfizer Inc. has demonstrated that it intends to become a major player in large-molecule therapeutics. (See "Big Pharma's Large Molecule Challenge," IN VIVO, September 2004 Also see "Big Pharma's Large Molecule Challenge" - In Vivo, 1 September, 2004..) And the acquisitions of Pharmacia Corp. [See Deal] and Esperion Therapeutics Inc. [See Deal] have quickly boosted the company's large molecule infrastructure and pipeline. Most recently, Pfizer significantly ramped up its antibody capabilities in a deal with Medarex Inc. that represents the biotech's biggest collaboration to date [See Deal].

Although its big push into large molecules is of recent vintage, Pfizer had been testing the antibody waters for several...