| CORP. FOCUS |
notes that the primary business focus for his company "is contract research, providing a balance of fee-for-service payments with potential downstream revenues in the form of bonus/success payments." a secondary focus is developing an intellectual property business consisting of validated, patentable lead compounds for sale or licensing, but this is only about 30% of its business. Some 70% of Argenta's staff focuses on contract research. David Phillips, chief commercial officer, says that the contract R&D work helps sustain the company's finances. As Phillips observes, "It will be a challenging time over the next few years--just surviving. Having a revenue stream is important for survival." The revenue stream, he adds, gives Argenta the funds to invest in its own work in oncology and diabetes. In those two fields, he adds, Argenta will generate compounds and then license them to others. Phillips emphasizes that the company doesn't work on targets that conflict with its research customers. |
| CORP. INFORMATION |
Argenta's audited revenues last year were roughly $7.5 million, with a target of $15 million this year, Phillips says. More important, he adds, it was close to breakeven in its last fiscal year, which ended March 31. |
| RESEARCH |
Last month, the company dedicated an extension of its research facility at its site in Harlow, north of London. The extension increased its lab space by more than two-thirds to a total of 33,000 sq ft. Argenta had moved into new labs only last September. And, says Chairman David White, "we hope to have plans for our second expansion very soon." |
| SERVICE |
Phillips says the need for chemistry services at all types of firms has grown with the proliferation of drug targets. "The bottleneck used to be at the point of identifying the target, but that has moved," he says, and is now occurring in the hit-to-lead step. That, he explains, is where discovery services companies such as Argenta fit in. |
| UPDATE | 08.02 |
| COMPANY | Argenta Discovery |
| CORP. HISTORIC | established in August 2000. originated as a joint venture between a team of scientists from the former Aventis Pharmaceuticals Research Centre in Dagenham, England, and ChemMedICa, a virtual spin-off company from Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine, in London. Initial funding of about $10 million was raised through four venture-capital firms in the U.K. |
| CUSTOMER |
- Aventis - GlaxoSmithKline - Lundbeck - Millennium Pharma |
| LITERATURE REF. | This data is not available for free |
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