Array BioPharma to open Morrisville office

A Colorado company that is developing cancer treatments is opening an office in the Triangle where it hopes to test its experimental medicines.

Array BioPharma, which employs about 300 people in the Boulder area, has leased about 20,000 square feet at Perimeter Park in Morrisville and plans to move midyear, spokeswoman Tricia Haugeto said.

The Triangle office will shepherd new drugs coming out of Array's Colorado labs through tests for efficacy and safety. Few places in the U.S. offer more expertise in pharmaceutical clinical trials than the Triangle.

Array was founded 10 years ago by chemists who left Amgen, a California biotech company with operations in Boulder. Now Array is working on about 10 anti-inflammatory and cancer treatments.

Most of Array's drugs are conceived in the company's labs. The idea is to build safer or more effective versions of existing drugs.

"There's a lot going on," said Richard Smith, a JP Morgan analyst who tracks the company.

Array's expertise is creating promising chemicals, Smith said. That's where the Triangle, home of a number of contract research organizations, comes in. Quintiles Transnational in Durham, INC Research in Raleigh and PPD in Morrisville help drug development companies test new medicines in patients.

"People are interested in what they're doing and give them credit for where they come from," Smith said about Array. "But a lot of people want to see more data."

Haugeto declined to say how many people Array will hire as it expands and builds a clinical development group in the Triangle.

Array expects that as many as three of its experimental drugs will advance to tests in humans this year, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show.

A presence in the Triangle could also attract development partnerships, Smith said.

Array's pipeline includes an experimental treatment for metastatic breast cancer that is similar to GlaxoSmithKline's breast cancer drug, Tykerb. The treatment could pique GSK's interest.