In a mammoth deal with a potentially huge payoff, Nurix Therapeutics Inc. and Seagen Inc. will collaborate to develop what they call a new class of medicines, Degrader-Antibody Conjugates, to create drugs with new mechanisms of action for treating cancer.
China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has given the green light to Gloria Biosciences Co. Ltd.’s anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody, zimberelimab (Yutuo, GLS-010), for treating second-line cervical cancer, making it the first immune checkpoint inhibitor approved in China for treating the disease.
Roche Holding AG’s Genentech subsidiary has broken new ground with a victory in phase III testing of the oral, anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor Alecensa (alectinib) in early stage, ALK-positive non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The drug, well known to doctors in the advanced setting, was compared with platinum-based chemotherapy and met its primary endpoint of disease-free survival at a prespecified interim analysis.
Verastem Oncology Inc. and Genfleet Therapeutics Ltd. have inked a discovery and development deal to advance three oncology discovery programs targeting RAS pathway-driven cancers.
KRAS-mutated tumors were once untreatable. In fact, KRAS was something of a poster child for so-called undruggability. Several laboratories are investigating strategies to address other mutations and uses beyond non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and colorectal cancer. If you can't bind KRAS to block it, use a glue or combine multiple weapons. This is the idea behind two new approaches that target cancers caused by this proto-oncogene.
Apollomics Inc.’s business combination this spring with Maxpro Capital Acquisition Corp., along with data that emerged from competitors Merck KGaA and Johnson & Johnson during the more recent American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, shone a spotlight on continuing efforts to develop mesenchymal-epithelial transition factor (cMET) inhibitors.
Ferring Pharmaceuticals A/S has struck a deal with Royalty Pharma for $500 million, capital it plans to plough into achieving a successful launch of its approved bladder cancer gene therapy, Adstiladrin (nadofaragene firadenovec), in the U.S., as well as enabling it to upgrade and expand its manufacturing sites.
Fore Biotherapeutics Inc. has closed on a $75 million series D financing so that it can continue developing its lead asset, plixorafenib, an oral small molecule that selectively inhibits BRAF alterations.
The narrative of TIGIT-targeting immunotherapy development, beset by negative news in recent months, has found a positive plotline again, thanks to what Roche Holding AG referred to as “an inadvertent disclosure” of a second interim analysis from the phase III Skyscraper-01 study testing anti-TIGIT candidate tiragolumab with anti-PD-L1 antibody Tecentriq (atezolizumab) in non-small-cell lung cancer.
Verismo Therapeutics Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of South Korea’s HLB Co. Ltd., inked a license agreement with the University of Pennsylvania for two newly discovered CD19 binders – one of which will be used to develop Synkir-310, its investigative CAR T therapy for blood cancers.
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