MedImmune Inc. / MEDI

About MedImmune Inc.

One MedImmune Way, Gaithersburg, Md. 20878
www.medimmune.com | 301-398-0000 | Founded: 1988

Industry: Biotechnology | Category: Top 100 Companies

While much of the investor and media focus continued to be on MedImmune's efforts to turn around its disappointing FluMist product, company executives paint 2005 as the year they ramped up thinking about the company's future. In that respect, it was a busy year of acquisitions and licensing deals, as MedImmune significantly beefed up its pipeline. Almost a dozen new drug targets were added to MedImmune's research and development portfolio, many of them potential treatments for cancer. One of the firm's biggest moves of the year was the $160 million purchase of Cellective Therapeutics Inc., a private Maryland-based biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies targeting autoimmune diseases and cancer.
In other developments, MedImmune announced that it was taking over full responsibility for selling its leading drug Synagis in the United States, ending a seven-year-old deal with pharmaceutical firm Abbott Laboratories Inc. Annual sales of Synagis, which prevents certain respiratory infections in babies, are more than $1 billion worldwide, and MedImmune is working on a next-generation version of the product. Still, the majority of headlines for MedImmune involved FluMist, a nasal flu vaccine. The company announced the completion of several milestones along its path to save the troubled vaccine, which has suffered from poor sales. First, MedImmune said a new liquid version of the nasal flu vaccine worked just as well as the frozen version, which is a nuisance for doctors to store. Also, the company took a significant step in its efforts to win approval for the liquid version in children under 5, showing that FluMist had proved superior for young children to the standard flu shot in a large global test.
In April of this year, the company received a jolt regarding what had been its mainstay. Reporting first-quarter results, the company revealed that Synagis sales slipped nearly 2 percent from a year earlier, contributing to a 59 percent drop in company profits. The company blamed distribution problems, disruptions in some areas because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and pressure by insurers to reduce use of the drug.

Chairman: Wayne T. Hockmeyer

Chairman: Wayne T. Hockmeyer

2007 Financial Data

Total employees: 2,215 | Local employees: 1,186