Genzyme puts its money into cancer drugs this year.

Publication: The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News)

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COPYRIGHT 2005 The Boston Globe

Byline: Jeffrey Krasner

Jan. 4--When Genzyme Inc. breaks down its revenue this year, there's a big hole: treatment of cancer.

That will change this year. The Cambridge firm completed its $1 billion acquisition of Ilex Oncology Inc. of San Antonio Dec. 21. Ilex brings with it one cancer drug on the market -- Campath -- and another, Clolar, that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last Tuesday.

Henri A. Termeer, Genzyme's chairman and chief executive, said in an interview that those two drugs are just the beginning. Within a few years, he hopes, Genzyme will be known primarily for cancer treatments.

"When we announced last year our intent to acquire Ilex, and later said we were going to auire an oncology diagnostic provider, we were saying that we are going to be in the oncology field in a significant and strategic way," Termeer said. "We want to...

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