Genzyme in strategic research partnership with China’s Tianjin International to get drugs to market, as US biotech is downgraded

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Genzyme in strategic research partnership with China’s Tianjin International to get drugs to market, as US biotech is downgraded by Zacks

Article | 14 May 2010

A signing ceremony was held early this week for a strategic partnership agreement between US biotechnology firm Genzyme and China’s Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biotechnology and Medicine (TJAB) in the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA).

The strategic partnership between Genzyme and the TJAB is in the fields of application and translational research, preclinical and clinical study, diagnostic testing and therapy, as well as doctoral and postdoctoral education training, and is expected to help quickly and successfully bring the company's innovative drugs to China, promoting innovation and development of the Chinese biopharmaceutical industry.

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The TJAB, co-founded by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Health, the State Food and Drug Administration and the Tianjin Municipal People's Government, officially opened in June 2009. As the core and symbol of the BioMed Zone, the academy received 1.1 billion renminbi ($161 million) of investment from the Tianjin Binhai New Area which was used to install specialized apparatus and devices. Leveraging its one-stop service system and dedicated public technology platform, TJAB has been committed to accelerating the process from new drug development to industrialization.

Genzyme could face additional problems

Genzyme has been under a lot of pressure over the past few quarters following the temporary shutdown of its Allston manufacturing facility due to contamination problems, and also incurring a financial penalty from the US Food and Drug Administration of at least $175 million., and is now considering various options such as divesting non-core businesses (The Pharma Letters passim).

Reviewing the company’s outlook, analysts at Zacks Equity Research say: “While we are pleased to see that Genzyme is taking steps to emerge from the impact of the temporary shutdown of the Allston plant, we believe that the company may face additional challenges before it is able to go back to a normal production and supply schedule. Moreover, the FDA is looking to enforce a consent decree on the company which would result in Genzyme incurring additional costs.”

With the company yet to emerge fully from its manufacturing issues, they say they are now downgrading the stock to Underperform. Although Genzyme could receive some positive news in the form of FDA approval of Lumizyme (alglucosidase alfa), they expect investor focus to remain on the emerging pipeline, updates regarding the supply schedule of Cerezyme (imiglucerase for injection), for Gaucher’s, and Fabrazyme (agalsidase beta), for Fabry disease.

Zacks target price of $47 is on the low end of the $43-$78 range and compares with a median analyst target price of $59.50 reported by Thomson FirstCall.

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