Bristol-Myers Buys Swedish Firm With Immunotherapy Treatment
July 05 2016 - 9:20AM
Dow Jones News
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said Tuesday that it had acquired
Sweden-based Cormorant Pharmaceuticals for up to $520 million, the
drugmaker's latest deal involving products that harness the immune
system to attack cancerous tumors.
Under the deal, Bristol-Myers will pay $95 million in upfront
and near-term payments to the privately held company, plus up to
$425 million in possible additional milestone payments.
Cormorant develops therapies for cancer and rare diseases. With
the acquisition, Bristol-Myers said it would gain the rights to
Cormorant's immunotherapy treatment, HuMax-IL8.
The treatment targets a protein in many solid tumors that
suppresses the immune system and helps tumors grow. Cormorant
acquired the rights to HuMax-IL8 from Genmab A/S in 2012 under an
exclusive license agreement.
Bristol's Yervoy, the first of the new wave of immunotherapies,
was approved in 2011 to treat advanced skin cancer. It was followed
in 2014 by Opdivo, which is now approved to treat lung and skin
cancer. Last year, Bristol reported $2.1 billion in global sales
from the two drugs.
Bristol said it would look to combine the HuMax-IL8 antibody
program with other existing cancer medicines.
"We believe combination therapy will be foundational to
delivering the potential for long-term survival for patients," said
Bristol-Myers Chief Scientific Officer Francis Cuss.
Combination therapy happens when patients receive combinations
of multiple drugs that may prove to be more effective than one or
two drugs—a promising strategy according to cancer researchers.
But, combining drugs means combining the prices of those drugs, and
higher overall treatment costs for patients and health
insurers.
High prices for new cancer drugs and higher prices for older
cancer drugs have received criticism from doctors, patients and
insurers, who say the costs are straining budgets and often seem
unrelated to how well the drugs work. The spread of combination
treatments threatens to heighten this tension.
Bristol-Myers stock has risen 12% over the past three months.
Shares rose 0.1% premarket to $73.83.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 05, 2016 09:05 ET (13:05 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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