On October 16, Corixa (Seattle, WA) agreed to purchase Coulter Pharmaceutical (S. San Francisco, CA) in an all-share deal worth $900 million. The merger creates an integrated immunotherapeutics company with two cancer therapies near to market and a number of others in clinical development. The crux of the deal was Coulter's cancer therapeutic Bexxar, a monoclonal antibody-based radiotherapy for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that is currently under FDA review. But the deal was not of desperation: Corixa has two other phase III products and has been strategically acquiring during the past 2 years—purchasing functional genomics skills via GenQuest (Seattle, WA), autoimmune products through Anergen (Redwood City, CA) (Nat. Biotechnol. 17, BE14), and adjuvant expertise and a manufacturing plant through Ribi ImmunoChem (Hamilton, MT). However, investors appeared concerned at the price Corixa paid for Coulter, with Corixa's share price falling around 18% following the news.