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The Resurrection of Affymax

 
• By Roger Longman

A group of venture firms decided to buy Affymax from GSK at a bargain-basement valuation. They felt it had not merely the makings of a product company but could jumpstart the creation of a fully integrated biology/screening/chemistry drug discovery company. In effect, they bought, at a discount, a proto-Vertex that wouldn't have to wait nearly a decade to see a valuation explosion.

It isn't often VCs buy technology companies. The big ones sometimes buy established marketing-oriented businesses to serve as the basis of roll-ups—like Warburg's moves in orthopedics, urology, and endovascular medicine. But buying out technology—and biotechnology, in particular? That's vanishingly rare.

Or rather it used to be. Schering AG , Novo Nordisk AS , and now GlaxoSmithKline PLC ...

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