Array BioPharma Inc.

01 Oct 1998

• By Kevin Roche

Amgen Boulder's medicinal chemists have launched a start-up of their own-Array BioPharma Inc., a "medicinal chemistry strike force." Array is positioning itself as a lead optimization team for hire at the preclinical bottleneck faced by companies that have internalized biotech's mass compound generation technologies

After Amgen Inc. acquired Synergen Inc. following that company's failed Phase III sepsis trial for Antril[See Deal], it immediately set about assembling a world-class research organization comprised of the former Synergen scientists, plus a team of medicinal chemists recruited from Pfizer Inc. , among other pharmas, to be based in the former Synergen site in Boulder.

As time went on, however, the costs of maintaining such an organization began to wear on Amgen—particularly when the company...