Friday, January 21, 2005

Pfizer Buys Angiosyn for $527M

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has agreed to buy San Diego-based biopharmaceutical startup Angiosyn, in a deal worth $527M plus future royalties. The deal was announced late Thursday night. Angiosyn is a spinoff of the Scripps Research Institute, developing an experimental drug to treat macular degeneration. Pfizer said that the company would continue to develop Angiosyn's angiostatic agent to treat ophthalmic diseases and that will merge into a wholly owned subsidiary of Pfizer. Angiosyn is backed by Alta Partners, which reportedly invested less than $10M in the firm. Alta states on its web site that it invested a $1.75M first round in Angiosyn at founding.