According to the WSJ, Sam Waksal is back with his partners at Kadmon Pharmaceuticals and their company is acquiring privately held Three Rivers Pharmaceutical LLC of Warrendale, PA for "more than $100 M." Waksal is the defrocked former CEO at Imclone.
Kadmon focuses on high value drugs in the areas of oncology, infectious disease and immunology. Kadmon has raised over $200 M in debt and equity and has big monied investors from Japan and China. Waksal is Kadmon's CEO.
Three Rivers currently markets several products for hepatits C, including Infergen, Ribasphere, and RibaPak. It also markets Amphotec for systemic fungal infections and can be used for certain cancers. Kadmon appears to want Three Rivers as a fully-integrated commercial company to serve as its launching pad. Three Rivers top executives will exit stage left in this acquisition.
Kadmon will keep Three Rivers' Warrendale headquarters and its manufacturing, distribution, commercial and admin operations. Kadmon hopes to develop a new model for small biotech firms who may be leery of the venture capital markets.
Says Waksal, "I'm taking what we did at Imclone and bringing it to the next step to build a 21st century biotech company." Of course when last seen at Imclone, Waksal was nailed for insider trading and exited stage right to a 5-year prison term. So I guess I can hardly wait to see what this looks like in a 21st century model.
Posted by Bruce Lehr October 26th 2010.
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