Af­ter some care­ful think­ing, Cel­gene strikes a $295M dis­cov­ery deal on neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion

A year ago, Cel­gene’s Bob Hug­in told a room­ful of re­porters at JP Mor­gan — which in­clud­ed me — that af­ter some care­ful con­tem­pla­tion he had con­clud­ed that any com­pa­ny that in­tend­ed to have a big im­pact on health in 10 years would have to be in­volved in de­vel­op­ing new drugs for neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion.

To­day, the big biotech $CELG, known for its dizzy­ing string of col­lab­o­ra­tions aimed at main­tain­ing its dom­i­nant role in mul­ti­ple myelo­ma and blood can­cers, said it would pay Evotec $45 mil­lion up­front and up to $250 mil­lion in mile­stones to get start­ed on a dis­cov­ery pro­gram aimed at a wide range of neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive con­di­tions.

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