Cancer vaccine startup NousCom has raised €42 million ($49 million). The round equips a team last seen leading Okairos to a €250 million buyout by GlaxoSmithKline to take off-the-shelf neoantigen cancer vaccine NOUS-209 into the clinic. Basel, Switzerland-based NousCom’s near-term prospects rest on programs based on Exovax. The Exovax platform uses single adenovirus vectors that […]
AstraZeneca has enlisted the aid of Incyte to try to boost its ambitions in a category of lung cancer immunotherapy where it has a lead over competitors. The two companies have agreed to pair Incyte’s IDO inhibitor epacadostat with AZ’s PD-L1 inhibitor Imfinzi in a phase 3 trial—due to get underway next year—as a second-line […]
Incyte is paying $150 million upfront for worldwide rights to MacroGenics’ PD-1 drug. The deal, which includes $750 million in milestones, is Incyte’s second attempt to land a PD-1 program to pair with its pipeline of oncology prospects. MacroGenics’ PD-1 drug, MGA012, only moved into the clinic late last year and is still weeks away […]
Gilead Sciences CEO John Milligan, under pressure from a flagging hep C franchise, has finally pulled the trigger on a deal aimed at growing sales in a new field. The company agreed to plunk down nearly $12 billion for Kite Pharma and its CAR-T candidate, winning Milligan the would-be cancer blockbuster he wanted. The company […]
Australian immuno-oncology company HaemaLogiX has signed an agreement with health and research institutions for commercialisation rights to an immuno-oncology agent designed to specifically target malignant cancer cells present in the bone marrow of multiple myeloma patients. Westmead Institute for Medical Research, Western Sydney Local Health District, Children’s Medical Research Institute, and the University of Sydney finalised […]
Servier will partner with Pieris Pharmaceuticals to co-develop Pieris’ preclinical dual-checkpoint inhibitor PRS-332 and up to seven other immuno-oncology bispecific drug candidates in a collaboration that could generate up to €1.7 billion ($1.8 billion) for Pieris. Pieris and Servier have agreed to initially pursue five bispecific therapeutic programs led by PRS-332, a potentially best-in-class programmed […]
Roche is promising up to $1 billion in exchange for as many as 5 targeted cancer therapies from Blueprint Medicines, looking to bolster its own work in immuno-oncology. Under the deal, Cambridge, MA’s Blueprint gets $45 million in upfront cash, and Roche has laid out another $965 million tied to option fees and milestone payments […]
Eli Lilly ($LLY) has expanded its R&D partnership with China’s Innovent Biologics, bringing in three potential immunotherapies for cancer and adding another $1 billion in potential value to the existing alliance. Under the new deal, the companies will collaborate on three bispecific antibodies that target the protein PD-1 in an effort to unblind the immune […]
Novartis ($NVS), developing cancer treatments that tap the power of the immune system, signed a pair of agreements to pad its pipeline of new oncology therapies, planning to test them alone and in tandem with in-house assets. The Swiss drugmaker acquired a Massachusetts firm called Admune Therapeutics for undisclosed sum, getting its hands on an […]
Moderna Therapeutics is launching the third new personalized cancer vaccine venture in as many weeks, spinning out its messenger RNA tech into a separate entity dubbed Caperna. This is Moderna’s fourth venture spinout and its second cancer play, which will initially be helmed by Tal Zaks, the chief medical officer at Cambridge, MA-based Moderna and […]