Seattle Genetics is a little like the L.A. Angels of Anaheim. Follow me on this one:
1> The name is Seattle Genetics, but the company has long been based in Bothell’s Canyon Park area. Similar to the Angels, you could call the company “Seattle Genetics Inc. of Bothell.”
2> No matter what it’s called, you can’t argue with real results. The Angels, unlike the hapless (again!) Mariners, are playing in the post-season for a shot at the World Series. Seattle Genetics is moving forward — seemingly well — with several cancer drug candidates and has had success licensing its novel “linking” technology to other biotechs who want to piggyback antibodies onto drugs. The company’s also hiring; according to the Puget Sound Business Journal, Seattle Genetics attended a recent job fair to pick up potential employees being laid off from Cell Therapeutics in Seattle.
All this was prompted by another bit of news out of that mostly-silent-but-steady enterprise today. It got another patent today for its SGN-40 drug, which is in early tests to treat certain lymphomas and leukemia. Here’s the news:
http://www.genengnews.com/news/bnitem.aspx?name=1070822XSL_NEWSML_TO_NEWSML_WEB.xml
More excitingly, however, the company got some national press last week for its role in developing a new prostate cancer treatment. Here’s the wire service story that ran on BusinessWeek’s Web site:
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8CUM5TO0.htm?campaign_id=apn_home_down&chan=db
Since I’m not a big fan of the Angels and I hate sounding 100 percent positive about any company, I will add in this tidbit. Seattle Genetics didn’t do all that well in the stock market during the last quarter: It’s stock ended Sept. 30 at $5.25 a share, down 2 percent. On the other hand, other biotech stocks got hammered much more, and the company had $95 million in the bank at the end of June.
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