PDL BioPharma (known as Protein Design Labs prior to 2006) is a publicly traded American

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

that since 2008 manages patents and other intellectual property that had been generated by the company.Peter Kolchinsky for In Vivo. July/August 201
How To Create A Lasting Peace Between Biotech Management, Shareholders And Employees
/ref> In 2008 in response to shareholder pressure, PDL spun out its active development programs to a company called Facet Biotech that it capitalized with $400 million.
December 17, 2008 Protein Design Labs, founded in 1986 by cell biologist Laurence J. Korn and mathematician Cary Queen, was a pioneer in humanizing

monoclonal antibodies A monoclonal antibody (mAb, more rarely called moAb) is an antibody produced from a cell Lineage made by cloning a unique white blood cell. All subsequent antibodies derived this way trace back to a unique parent cell. Monoclonal antibodies ...

. Its humanization technology was used in several monoclonal antibody drugs under licensing and collaboration agreements; such products included trastuzumab (Herceptin),

bevacizumab Bevacizumab, sold under the brand name Avastin among others, is a medication used to treat a number of types of cancers and a specific eye disease. For cancer, it is given by slow injection into a vein ( intravenous) and used for colon cancer, ...

(Avastin), and palivizumab (Synagis).Thiel KA. A very firm handshake: biotech's growing negotiating power. Nat Biotechnol. 2005 Oct;23(10):1221-6. It held its initial public offering in 1992 and by 1994 it had 13 compounds in its pipeline, and had partnered its lead product, the humanized monoclonal antibody

daclizumab Daclizumab (trade name Zinbryta) is a therapeutic humanized monoclonal antibody which was used for the treatment of adults with relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS). Daclizumab works by binding to CD25, the alpha subunit of the IL-2 recepto ...

, with Roche under a license that called for a 15% royalty. Daclizumab became the first humanized monoclonal antibody approved for human use in 1997. PDL made another public offering in 2000, at the peak of the biotech IPO window that ran from 1998 to 2001. In 2003 it settled litigation with

Genentech Genentech, Inc., is an American biotechnology corporation headquartered in South San Francisco, California. It became an independent subsidiary of Roche in 2009. Genentech Research and Early Development operates as an independent center within ...

over royalty payments owed to PDL under their license agreement; annual royalties were anticipated at that time to be around $90M per year. These are the kinds of intellectual property and license agreements that PDL manages on behalf of its shareholders since 2008; in 2007 those royalty payments were around $220 million. One of the development programs that PDL had transferred to Facet was the use of daclizumab in indications it had never licensed to Roche, including multiple sclerosis. Facet partnered that development program with Biogen Idec which attempted a hostile buy out of Facet for $350M in 2009; Facet rejected that offer and was purchased by

Abbvie AbbVie is an American publicly traded biopharmaceutical company founded in 2013. It originated as a spin-off of Abbott Laboratories. History On October 19, 2011, Abbott Laboratories announced its plan to separate into two publicly traded compani ...

for $450 million in cash the next year. The FDA approved daclizumab for multiple sclerosis in 2016 under the trade name Zinbryta. FDA News Release: FDA approves Zinbryta to treat multiple sclerosis
May 27, 2016 PDL Biopharma has filed for a liquidation under Delaware Law that was effective January 7 2021. The liquidation plan was approved by shareholders in October 2020.

References

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External links

Official website
Biotechnology companies of the United States Life sciences industry