Antigenics Inc.

Type: Public
On the web: http://www.antigenics.com
Employees: 80
Employee growth: (20.0%)

Cancer and other diseases had better beware -- Antigenics is packing heat. The firm develops heat shock proteins, which are related to the immune system's response to disease. Its patient-specific vaccines work on the theory that each person's cancer has a unique signature and are derived from the tumor after it has been removed. Lead drug candidate Oncophage is the first personalized cancer vaccine to receive FDA fast track status (a designation that expedites the approval of treatments for serious diseases); it has this designation for kidney and skin cancers. Another cancer vaccine candidate in the firm's pipeline targets genital herpes.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending December, 2008:
Sales: $2.7M
One year growth: (52.3%)
Net income: ($28.7)M

Officers:
Chairman and CEO: Garo H. Armen
VP and CFO: Shalini Sharp
VP Corporate Communications: Sunny Uberoi

Competitors:
AVAX
Dendreon
GlaxoSmithKline

Antigenics Inc. is a biotechnology company founded in 1994 by Garo H. Armen and Pramod K. Srivastava. The company focuses on cancer vaccines, immunotherapeutics, adjuvants and infectious disease treatments. Antigenics became a public company in February 2000 on the NASDAQ exchange with the ticker symbol AGEN. In 2000 Antigenics acquired Aquila Biopharmaceuticals and in 2001 also acquired Aronex Pharmaceuticals. Antigenics has over 80 U.S. patents, many of which relate to its proprietary heat shock protein technology upon which its experimental cancer vaccine Oncophage is built.

Articles

• Wall Street Journal article on company and FDA
• A roundup of news announcing the filing in Russia and the quarterly update

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