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Middleton, Wis., Pharmaceutical Company's Research Functions to Stay

Posted on: Friday, 1 July 2005, 18:01 CDT

Jul. 1--Nearly 20 years after it was created, Bone Care International is no more.

But Bone Care, a rising star in the Madison area's biotechnology community, will still have a presence here.

The Middleton specialty pharmaceutical company, now part of Genzyme Corp., Cambridge, Mass., will keep its pre-clinical research and quality control functions in Middleton, representing about 30 of its 170 jobs, John P. Butler, president of Genzyme Renal, said Thursday.

Another dozen employees will be asked to stay with the company and move to Massachusetts. Forty-five other positions, in areas such as human resources, payroll and clerical, will end in about 60 days, he said, and nearly all of Bone Care's executive team will leave the company.

The majority of Bone Care's sales staff -- who did not work at the Middleton offices adjacent to the Greenway Station shopping Center -- will join Genzyme's sales force.

"Everyone's been incredibly professional," said Butler, who was in Middleton on Thursday to meet with Bone Care employees. "From the day we announced the intent to merge, the teams have been working together."

With the shareholders' vote Thursday to sell the company to Genzyme for $33 a share, or a total of $600 million, Bone Care ended nine years of trading on the Nasdaq market under the symbol, BCII, and went out of existence at 12:01 this morning.

It's almost an inevitable outcome, said David J. Ward, president of NorthStar Economics in Madison.

"In this kind of economy, you grow (a business) and you either acquire other companies or you get acquired," Ward said.

Genzyme, a specialty drug development company with $2.2 billion in sales last year and 7,600 employees, plans to couple sales of Bone Care's Hectorol drugs with its own Renagel. Both are aimed at patients with failing kidneys Hectorol is a vitamin D hormone; Renagel controls phosphorus levels.

"Our plan is to continue to invest in this part of the business and bring Hectorol to markets outside of the United States," Quinn said.

Genzyme shares (Nasdaq: GENZ) closed Thursday at $60.06, down 83 cents. Analyst Christopher Raymond of Robert W. Baird & Co. in Chicago rated the stock "outperform" and projected its price will reach $72 within 12 months, in a May 5 research report. He termed the acquisition "a great strategic fit."

And there could, eventually, be others from the Madison area.

"Maintaining a presence here allows Genzyme to get to know this community more, to find out what other opportunities are out here," Butler said. "We're always looking for interesting science to be involved in."

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BCII, GENZ, NDAQ,

Source: The Wisconsin State Journal

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