Xencor Inc

Genentech Inc. has licensed antibody technology from Xencor Inc., a small biotechnology company in Monrovia, to develop next-generation versions of Genentech's cancer drugs Rituxan and Herceptin. Genentech, based in South San Francisco, will pay Xencor a $5-million fee and annual licensing fees. The smaller company is eligible for undisclosed milestone payments and royalties. Xencor is a Caltech spinoff working on drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases.

A Monrovia-based start-up on Thursday became the latest participant in a biotech consolidation wave that is seeing bigger players investing in or buying smaller companies. And much of that activity is in California, where the biomedical industry has become one of the state's fastest-growing industries, according to a report released Thursday. The trend is driven by bigger companies needing to keep their drug development pipelines filled with new products. That logic made Xencor Inc.

Biotech firm Xencor Inc. said it has changed a protein responsible for rheumatoid arthritis into a form that can be used to treat the disease. But the company, a Caltech spinoff based in Monrovia, acknowledged that it has much work to do before turning its discovery into a drug that would challenge Amgen Inc.'s Enbrel and Johnson & Johnson's Remicade.

Genentech Inc. has licensed antibody technology from Xencor Inc., a small biotechnology company in Monrovia, to develop next-generation versions of Genentech's cancer drugs Rituxan and Herceptin. Genentech, based in South San Francisco, will pay Xencor a $5-million fee and annual licensing fees. The smaller company is eligible for undisclosed milestone payments and royalties. Xencor is a Caltech spinoff working on drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases.

A Monrovia-based start-up on Thursday became the latest participant in a biotech consolidation wave that is seeing bigger players investing in or buying smaller companies. And much of that activity is in California, where the biomedical industry has become one of the state's fastest-growing industries, according to a report released Thursday. The trend is driven by bigger companies needing to keep their drug development pipelines filled with new products. That logic made Xencor Inc.

Biotech firm Xencor Inc. said it has changed a protein responsible for rheumatoid arthritis into a form that can be used to treat the disease. But the company, a Caltech spinoff based in Monrovia, acknowledged that it has much work to do before turning its discovery into a drug that would challenge Amgen Inc.'s Enbrel and Johnson & Johnson's Remicade.