Rockville Biotech Micromet Sold for $1.16B

Micromet, Inc. the Rockville-based company developing a drug to fight leukemia, agreed to a $1.16 billion merger with California-based Amgen, Inc., the Maryland company announced in a news release on Thursday.

The acquisition gives Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company, ownership of blinatumomab, which is in clinical development for use against two blood cancers: acute lymphoblastic leukemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Micromet was not expected to add employees, The Gazette reported when news of the deal emerged in July. The company employs about 200 people, The Gazette reported. Thirty-two of those are at the company’s headquarters on Corporate Boulevard, according to The Washington Post. The company's research and development facility is in Germany.

Micromet’s president told The Post that he expected the acquisition by Amgen “to speed blinatumomab’s path to market.”

Micromet likely would have struggled to bring the drug to market relying on its own resources, an industry analyst told The Post.

Amgen is using the acquisition to add products with potential to fill “a fairly empty pipeline,” an industry analyst told Bloomberg.

Judy Britz, executive director of the Maryland Biotechnology Center, told The Post that the acquisition “is an affirmation of the value of what companies are pursuing in the eyes of others.”

The acquisition is the latest in a series of acquisitions of Maryland biotechnology companies by larger firms.

Netherlands-based vitamin supplier Royal DSM purchased Columbia-based Martek, which makes nutrients for baby formula, for $1.1 billion in late 2010, The Post reported. AstraZeneca purchased Gaithersburg-based for $15.6 billion in 2007 and created a research-and-development center in Gaithersburg.