American Pharmaceutical Partners to Merge with American BioScience

Injectable-drug maker American Pharmaceutical Partners (APP, Schaumburg, IL, www.appdrugs.com) has announced plans to merge with American BioScience Inc. (Santa Monica, CA, www.americanbiosciences.com), a privately held biotechnology company and APP’s largest shareholder.

The merger will create Abraxis BioScience, which will hold worldwide ownership rights to “Abraxane,” a marketed treatment for metastatic breast cancer and currently under development in more than 74 clinical trials to treat other types of cancer.

Abraxis BioScience also will inherit an extensive proprietary pipeline based on the commercially validated nanoparticle albumin bound (“nab”) technology platform with six investigational new drug applications, including “Coroxane”-for peripheral vascular disease-in Phase II/III and nab docetaxel, which is expected to enter clinical trials next year.

Other core segments of the newly formed company include a well-established hospital-based injectables business and a broad injectables pipeline comprising more than 20 pending abbreviated new drug applications and 40 more in development. According to company reports, the manufacturing infrastructure will produce more than 200 million vials annually, with revenues expected to exceed $500 million this year.