Vatican invests in biotech cancer research

A Vatican-based Roman Catholic religious order has entered the biotechnology research sector, aiming to develop anticancer agents. The Congregation of the Children of the Immaculate Conception first developed a health care products business with skin care products in the 1920s and developed steroid-based dermatological drugs and cosmetics in the late 1960s.

In 2004, the Congregation bought Nerviano Medical Science, a biotechnology laboratory employing 700 people in Milan, Italy, from global drug giant Pfizer. Pfizer reportedly paid 200.0 million euros ($264.3 million) for a first-refusal on any products in the NMS pipeline.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Pfizer accepted the deal because the heavily-regulated Italian labor market required substantial severance payments to staff and to avoid the loss of years of R&D work. At the end of 2006, NMS had drug development contracts worth over $400.0 million with Pfizer and fellow-US drug major Bristol-Myers Squibb.