Genentech to buy Seragon

pharmafile | July 3, 2014 | News story | Sales and Marketing |  Genentech, Roche, breast cancer, oncology, serds 

Roche subsidiary Genentech is to pay around $1.7 billion for biotech firm Seragon Pharmaceuticals to secure its portfolio of potential next generation breast cancer treatments.

Genentech will shell out $725 million up front, plus payments of up to $1 billion depending on whether certain development and commercial milestones are met, and the deal is expected to be sealed during the third quarter of the year.

The object of the exercise is to give the Roche business rights to Seragon’s entire portfolio of investigational next-generation oral selective estrogen receptor degraders (SERDs).

The company is in effect betting that these drugs – unproven at present – have a big future in the treatment of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.

“This year, breast cancer will claim the lives of nearly 40,000 women in the US, and up to half of these women will have a disease that is driven by the estrogen receptor,” says Richard Scheller, head of Genentech research and early development.

Up to 60% of breast cancers depend on the estrogen hormone and the estrogen receptor to grow and spread – SERDs have been designed to block this action at the receptor and eliminate it from the cell.

Although the precise mechanism is not clear, it is thought that SERDs change the shape of the receptor in such a way as to make it a target for the cell to destroy.

Scheller’s division will absorb Seragon’s portfolio, and the firm says this will complement Genentech’s existing R&D efforts in this therapy area.

“We believe these investigational oral SERDs could one day redefine the standard of care for hormone receptor-positive breast cancer,” he adds.

Founded in San Diego just last year, Seragon’s lead candidate is ARN-810, a SERD currently in Phase I trials for patients who have failed current hormonal agents.

Adam Hill