CAT Merges for Money; Chooses Well-Dowered OGS

 
• By Mary Stuart

The merger of Cambridge Antibody Technology and Oxford GlycoSciences won't, in the short term, solve many of the problems that both share--namely, a lack of products, scant clinical development capabilities and a non-existent sales and marketing infrastructure. It does, however, create a financially stronger potential acquiror in a European biotech industry in need of consolidation.

The management of monoclonal antibody company Cambridge Antibody Technology Group PLC (CAT) and proteomics firm Oxford GlycoSciences PLC (OGS) are positioning their merger, announced January 23, as a kind of inevitable marriage of two compatible partners. After all, the biotech firms have been working together since 2000 to develop a protein chip useful for screening human monoclonal antibody libraries that CAT generates against OGS proteomics targets [See Deal].

And in retrospect, it would appear that the two partners were preparing themselves for such a merger. Last year, struggling...

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