Celgene and OncoMed announce new cancer drug alliance

Celgene has entered into a new strategic collaboration with OncoMed on the development of several new anti-cancer stem cell therapeutics.

The agreement will see the companies working to jointly develop and commercialise up to six anti-cancer stem cell product candidates from OncoMed's biologics pipeline, including the promising investigational compound demcizumab.

OncoMed will lead the early clinical trials and retain co-development, co-commercialisation and profit-sharing rights to five of the six therapies, while it has also received an equity investment and funding support from its new partner.

Celgene, meanwhile, possesses an exclusive option to demcizumab, which is currently in phase Ib testing in a number of indications, including a trial in patients with first-line advanced pancreatic cancer.

Tom Daniel, president of global research and early development at Celgene, said: "Demcizumab's substantial early clinical activity warrants aggressive yet careful evaluation in several indications where we have strength, including non-small cell lung cancer and pancreatic cancer."

This comes after Celgene announced new antibody research alliances with Adimab and MorphoSys earlier this year.