Erasca Inc. agreed to give Novartis AG $20 million cash up front and company shares (NASDAQ:ERAS) worth $80 million for an exclusive global license to naporafenib, a pan-RAF inhibitor for treating RAS/MAPK pathway-driven tumors, Erasca’s sweet spot. Erasca CEO Jonathan Lim told investors Dec. 9 that the therapy is complementary to the company’s portfolio, which includes 11 development programs targeting the pathway.
Arcellx Inc. signed a deal that could be worth almost $4 billion with Gilead Sciences Inc.’s unit Kite Pharma Inc. to push forward Arcellx's lead late-stage candidate CART-ddBCMA for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. The arrangement brings $225 million up front plus an equity investment of $100 million, along with as much as $3.9 billion in milestone payments. Arcellx CEO Rami Elghandour said the firm sorted through a number of suitors interested in the program. Data at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting “catalyzed a number of discussions and a broad set of interests. We felt of the possibilities out there, [Kite/Gilead is] the partner of choice in this space.”
New and updated clinical data presented by biopharma firms at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, including: Astrazeneca, Context, Dantari, Exelixis, G1, Intensity.
At the ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress 2022, Compugen Inc. shared phase I data for COM-701 in dual and triple combination with Bristol Meyers Squibb Co.’s Opdivo (nivolumab) and with or without BMS-986207. Compugen’s candidate demonstrated preliminary durable antitumor activity and immune activation in patients with platinum resistant ovarian cancer with a favorable safety and toxicity profile.
Vevo Therapeutics Inc. raised $12 million in an over-subscribed seed round to build out an in vivosingle-cell screening platform, which will enable it to interrogate simultaneously the effects of small molecule drug leads on multiple cancer cell lines.
New and updated clinical data presented by biopharma firms at the ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress 2022, including: Immunocore, Jounce, NGM, Promontory, Rapt.
Shares of Oncopeptides AB dropped 35% Dec. 7 on the U.S. FDA’s request to withdraw marketing authorization of Pepaxto (melflufen), a drug that had gained accelerated approval in early 2021 for use in relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. The move followed a negative advisory committee vote in September 2022 and is based on the outcome of the confirmatory phase III Ocean study.
Replimune Group Inc. has found consistent treatment efficacy in its pivotal phase II Ignyte melanoma study. The interim data strongly bolstered the stock (NASDAQ:REPL), which ended Dec. 7 with a 22% increase to $23.09. The new results for the combination treatment show what Replimune called clinically meaningful durable activity across the range of anti-PD1 failed cutaneous melanoma presentations, including in patients with moderate to high tumor burden, with 85% of responses ongoing.
Accession Therapeutics Ltd. has raised £16.6 million (US$20.3 million) in a series A round, as it prepares to take two targeted oncolytic/payload combination viruses into the clinic. At the same time, the company disclosed that the scientist who devised the tumor-only targeting mechanism is Alan Parker, professor of translational virotherapies at Cardiff University.
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