Value Transfusion: Vitex Merges with Panacos Pharmaceuticals
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
V.I. Technologies Inc. (Vitex), a developer of pathogen inactivation technologies for donor blood, has agreed to acquire privately-held Panacos Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a stock swap valued at approximately $26.25 million at current stock prices. Superficially, the deal appears to be fairly typical pipeline building: Vitex has a late-stage blood safety product, Inactine, in Phase III clinical trials, and Panacos Pharmaceuticals offers a Phase I anti-HIV compound, which is in line with VI Technologies' expertise in blood-borne infectious diseases. But the deal is really about value creation, as Vitex, along with all others in the pathogen inactivation market, has taken too long to get its product to the market.
You may also be interested in...
Safe Blood At Any Cost?
With AIDS and HCV under control, companies large and small are looking to protect the blood supply from a range of known and as yet unknown pathogens, which pose potential threats. Near-term attention is focusing on emerging pathogen inactivation technologies, which are moving closer to the clinic, even as questions linger about their cost effectiveness and toxicity.
Another Layer of Safety for the Blood Supply
Cerus has received European regulatory approval for a pathogen inactivation system that its president describes as the first "prospective" approach to blood safety. Cerus and marketing partner Baxter plan to launch the device in Europe by year-end. The device inactivates all pathogens in platelets, in contrast to existing blood screening tests, which look for specific infectious agents and don't address the risk of emerging pathogens. The partners have a long series of hurdles to overcome, not least of which is the difficulty of convincing potential buyers to pay more for a technology that addresses theoretical risk.
Wound Solutions Ltd.
Wound Solutions Ltd. looks to the paradigm of patient self-care in diabetes to address the gaps in chronic wound care, where the feedback provided by blood glucose monitoring encourages changes in behavior. A small device that is placed under a compression bandage helps patients with venous leg ulcers comply with the steps they should be taking to support wound healing, in the process, collecting data that helps clinicians make informed therapy decisions.