Boston Biotech Update

Here is an interesting update on Boston area biotech companies. Note that many are not out of woods yet in terms of profitability, which is making their venture investors unhappy, as you can imagine.

With stock prices plummeting, capital evaporating, and promising drugs getting sent to the back of the line by the Food and Drug Administration, this is a good time to assess how far Massachusetts' biotechnology industry has come -- or failed to come -- since its inception some 20 years ago.

The two titans of the industry, Biogen Inc. and Genzyme Corp. of Cambridge, each posted 10 percent increases in revenues, and both exceeded revenues of $1 billion.

Indeed, for many on The Globe 100's list of biotech firms with the highest revenues, little of the revenues come from the sale of drugs or therapeutics developed inside the company. At Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge, about 45 percent of revenues last year came from sales of Integrilin, a drug used in heart surgery to prevent blood clots. But Integrilin was developed by COR Therapeutics Inc. of San Francisco, which Millennium acquired in a big stock swap last year. Most of Millennium's other revenues came from strategic alliances with big pharmaceutical companies. Velcade, a cancer drug approved by the FDA May 13, also came to Millennium via acquisition.

Many of the others on the list are so-called "tool box companies" that provide products, services, and supplies for drug discovery, yet don't seek to develop their own drugs. Charles River Laboratories International of Wilmington rose to prominence as a breeder of special mice for medical research; it has grown by acquiring other firms that provide preclinical testing services. Waters Corp. of Milford makes equipment used in the lab to separate and analyze molecular samples. Bruker Daltonics Inc. of Billerica makes lab equipment for an identification process called high-performance liquid chromatography.

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