Amgen joins M&A rush with deals for Dezima and Xencor
pharmafile | September 16, 2015 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Amgen, Cancer, Denzime, Xencor, cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, inflammation
Amgen has struck deals that could potentially be worth $3.25 billion, to purchase the Dutch firm Dezima and kick-off a collaboration with the US firm Xencor.
The US pharma giant Amgen is to work with drug development firm Xencor in a research and license agreement to develop and commercialise new treatments for cancer and inflammation.
The research collaboration brings together Amgen’s capabilities in target discovery and protein therapeutics with Xencor’s XmAb bispecific technology platform.
Amgen will be fully responsible for preclinical and clinical development and commercialisation worldwide. Xencor will receive a $45 million upfront payment, and a further $1.7 billion in clinical, regulatory and sales milestone payments in total for the six programs.
Sean Harper, executive vice president of research and development at Amgen says: “We are pleased to be joining forces with Xencor to expand our immuno-oncology and inflammation position by leveraging Amgen’s antibodies and Xencor’s bispecific antibody platform.
“We are especially excited about the T cell engaging bispecific antibody directed against CD38, which complements Amgen’s BiTE platform, while growing our haematology and oncology portfolio that includes two bispecific T cell engager antibodies, Blincyto (blinatumomab) and AMG 330, as well as Kyprolis (carfilzomib) for relapsed multiple myeloma.”
Bispecific technologies seek to engineer monoclonal antibodies to bind two unique drug targets, as opposed to traditional antibodies designed to bind to a single antigen target.
Amgen is also due to acquire Dutch firm Dezima Pharma, after agreeing to acquire all outstanding shares of Dezima venture capitalists from Forbion and other current shareholders. The full share value is $1.55 billion, including an upfront payment of $300m, milestone payments of up to $1.25bn and low-single-digit royalties on net product sales above a certain threshold. The biotechnology company is developing innovative drugs to treat patients with heart disease caused by high cholesterol, including TA-8995, an oral, once-daily CETP inhibitor.
“There has been an auspicious coming together of key elements leading up to this acquisition by Amgen,” says Professor John Kastelein, chief scientific officer and founder of Dezima. “I am proud to be part of this exceptional team and company, and I now look forward to working with Amgen to speed this highly promising product to market and to patients as soon as we can.”
Yasmita Kumar
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