Biotechnology Pioneer Enzon Pharmaceuticals Cuts It Workforce in Half
Piscataway, NJ-based Enzon Pharmaceuticals, the once venerable biotechnology that was the first to successfully commercialize protein PEGylation, yesterday announced that it plans to lay off nearly half its employees by the second quarter of next year.
The layoffs will leave Enzon with 47 employees. The company said that the layoffs are intended to align resources with the company's research and development activities. Enzon, once with a market valuation greater than Merck pharmaceuticals, has been steadily losing revenue over the past 10 years and had essentially abandoned R&D in the protein PEGylation field that it had pioneered. Over the same time period, the company had a succession of CEOs, each of whom had a different vision and strategic plan forward.
Enzon was founded in 1982 by Abe Abuchowski, PhD, who validated the commercial possibilities for protein PEGylation while a graduate student at Rutgers University. Abuchowski licensed the rights to protein PEGylation and formed Enzon several years after receiving his PhD degree. He took the company public in 1985 (a feat that was not easy to accomplish back in those days) and went on to use protein PEGylation to develop two products with orphan drug designations (Adagen and Oncospar) and PEG-Intron a second generation biopharmaceutical used to treat Hepatitis C infections.
Abuchowski was CEO and Chairmen of Enzon until 1996. He left the company that he created because its board decided that PEGylated small molecules rather than proteins ought to be the future focus of the company. Enzon abandoned its biopharmaceutical focus in favor of small molecules in the late 1990s. Although in recent years the company tried to resuscitate its protein PEGylation programs, the PEGylation industry had essentially passed the company by and they were no longer competitive.
Abuchowski is currently CEO and Chairman of Prolong Pharmaceuticals, a South Plainfield, NJ-based, company developing products targeting the treatment of anemia resulting from oxygen deficiency. Not surprisingly, many of the products in the company’s pipeline were developed using protein PEGylation technology. While others have contributed to the protein PEGylation field, Abuchowski is generally recognized as the first person to commercialize the technology. He has received numerous awards for his work in protein PEGylation; a technology that generates roughly $30 billion in drug sales annually.
Until next time...
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!
Back in 1993 when I was looking for an industrial job, I came across an ad for a research scientist at a Philadelphia-based biopharmaceutical company called Neose. Unlike most other biotechnology companies at the time, the company was focused on identifying and discovering drugs against carbohydrate-based targets—a novel idea at the time. Because I had spent the previous seven years working on carbohydrate biochemistry, I applied for the job and I was invited to interview for the position. At the time, Neose was a small, marginally-funded biotech company that was started in 1993 by a cell biologist from the University of Pennsylvania.
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