February 5, 2010 (FinancialWire) — BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ: BMRN) said it has entered into a stock purchase agreement to acquire LEAD Therapeutics, Inc., a small, privately-held drug discovery and early stage development company.

Under the terms of the stock purchase agreement, BioMarin will pay to the stockholders of LEAD $18 million upfront and will pay an additional $11 million upon acceptance of the IND filing for LEAD’s LT-673 compound, and up to $68 million for development and launch milestones for LT-673.

As a result of the acquisition, BioMarin expects to incur around $11.0 to $13.0 million in operating expenses and acquisition related charges in 2010.

Subject to customary closing conditions, the acquisition is scheduled to be completed by mid-February 2010.

LEAD offers compound LT-673, an orally available poly polymerase inhibitor for the treatment of patients with rare, genetically defined cancers.

Jacques Bienaime, chief executive officer of BioMarin, said, “The acquisition of LEAD Therapeutics will augment our development pipeline of orphan therapeutics.”

He said that BioMarin sees a “tremendous opportunity,” with LT-673, to apply its expertise in developing therapeutics for genetic diseases to the field of oncology by targeting cancers with defined genetic mutations that make them susceptible to treatment with agents such as LT-673.

Bienaime added that BioMarin looks forward to an IND filing for LT-673 by the end of 2010.

California-based BioMarin develops and commercializes biopharmaceuticals for serious diseases and medical conditions. The company’s product portfolio comprises four approved products and multiple clinical and pre-clinical product candidates.

LEAD Therapeutics began operations in April 2007 as a drug discovery company. LEAD has offices in San Bruno, California, and in Shanghai, China.

FinancialWire(tm) is committed to serving the financial community through true journalism and providing relevant resources to investors. Standards-based, independent equity research on numerous public companies is available through the Investrend Research Syndicate (http://www.investrend.com/reports) written by FIRST Research Consortium (http://www.investrend.com/FIRST) member-providers. Free annual reports and company filings for companies mentioned in the news are available through the Investrend Information Syndicate (at http://investrend.ar.wilink.com/?level=279). FinancialWire(tm), in cooperation with the Investrend Broadcast Syndicate, also provides complete, daily conference call and webcast schedules as a service to shareholders and investors via the FirstAlert(tm) Network’s “FirstAlert(tm) Daily” (http://www.financialwire.net/news-alerts/).

FinancialWire(tm) is a fully independent, proprietary news wire service. FinancialWire(tm) is not a press release service, and receives no compensation for its news, opinions or distributions. Further disclosure is at the FinancialWire(tm) website (http://www.financialwire.net/disclosures.php). Contact FinancialWire(tm) directly via inquiries@financialwire.net.

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.