DUBLIN – Sanofi SA is paying a hefty 172% premium to acquire Synthorx Inc. for $68 per share, or $2.5 billion in all, to add a clinical-stage immuno-oncology asset to its pipeline and a platform technology that will enable it to optimize cytokine-based drugs for cancer and autoimmune disease.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Kura Oncology Inc., encouraged by new data on tipifarnib and positive feedback from the FDA, said Sunday that next year it will initiate a single-arm, phase II registration-directed trial of the candidate in angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL), a rare and often aggressive form of peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL).  

ORLANDO, Fla. – While disparities remain in putting minority and older patients into clinical trials and being treated for blood cancers, there are successes in getting once-ignored patients into the mix so they can receive the same treatments as others. 

ORLANDO, Fla. - Chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR T) cells have proved to be a major advance in treating patients with refractory B-cell malignancies so far. But, often, in approaching those issues "we solve one and we create another," Stephen Schuster, a doctor at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told reporters at the 61st American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting Saturday.

The “remarkably appealing” route of administration and every-three-month dosing put Ferring Pharmaceuticals SA’s nadofaragene firadenovec (rAd-IFN/Syn3, also known as Instiladrin) in strong position for approval in high-grade Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) unresponsive non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC).  

Targeting prostate cancer (PCa) neuroendocrine (NE) cells via inhibition of the C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 2 (CXCR2) is an androgen receptor (AR)-independent therapeutic strategy that can improve the efficacy of treatment for PCa, a leading cause of male cancer mortality.

BEIJING – EOC Pharmaceutical Group, of Shanghai, completed a series C financing round, bagging $71 million to advance its lead programs EOC-103 and EOC-315 for breast and gastric cancers. The round was led by Hangzhou Tigermed Consulting Co. Ltd. and its affiliated funds, TF Capital and Yingke PE. Hanne Capital and Everest Venture Capital also participated in the round. In 2017, EOC raised $32 million in a series B round. All funding participants are China-based.

Tumor-agnostic therapy developer Black Diamond Therapeutics Inc. has completed an oversubscribed series C financing of $85 million. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company said proceeds will help it advance candidates targeting oncogenic driver mutations of the ErbB kinases in EGFR and HER2, starting with a combined phase I/II trial of its most advanced candidate next year.

HONG KONG – Rapt Therapeutics Inc., of San Francisco, and Seoul, South Korea-based Hanmi Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. entered a license agreement for Rapt’s FLX-475 in Asia. FLX-475 is an oral, small-molecule CCR4 antagonist for cancer treatment. 

Civetta Therapeutics LLC will take a $53 million series A to advance its platform and programs based on beta-propeller proteins that mediate protein-to-protein interactions. Those proteins can become involved in cancers, neurodegeneration and metabolic disorders, with oncology being the company’s initial focus.