SiliconBeat

Maxygen, the Redwood City bio-pharmaceutical company, will consolidate its operations by closing its Danish subsidiary and relocating its research-and-development activities to its Silicon Valley location. The move is expected to boost its local headcount by about 25
employees.

Russell Howard, Maxygen’s chief executive, cited the “weakening dollar” for
“significantly” increasing the cost of operating its Denmark facility, in a press release included with the company’s 8-K filing announcing the move.

This year has not been kind to Maxygen shares which have lost about a third of their value so far in 2007. They touched a 52-week low of $6.12 on Nov. 2.

On Monday, the company announced in a filing with the SEC that end of its collaboration
agreement with Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, in their efforts to jointly develop and commercialize MAXY-alpha, Maxygen’s treatment of Hepatitis C virus and Hepatitis B virus. Roche had initiated a Phase Ia trial of the treatment in November 2006, but put a voluntarily hold on further clinical development in September. Based on an evaluation of the data collected by Roche, the two companies agreed to discontinue the clinical development of the drug.

All rights to the MAXY-alpha product revert back to Maxygen, which is currently “evaluating” its plans for the continued development of the drug.

In a November 19 filing, Maxygen said it would see about $7 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2007 under its license agreement with Codexis, a company Maxygen spun-out in 2003 that uses Maxygen chemical-research technology to develop applications related to energy development.

Maxygen’s ownership interest in Codexis was reduced to approximately 25 percent following an equity investment in Codexis by Royal Dutch Shell. Shell will expand its collaboration agreement with Codexis for the development of new super enzymes to convert biomass to fuel.