Bristol-Myers Squibb announces oncology partnership

Bristol-Myers Squibb has announced that it has formed a collaboration agreement with Adnexus Therapeutics for the discovery, development and commercialisation of treatments for the modulation of oncology targets with high clinical impact.

Up to six research programmes will be involved in the partnership, with Adnexus using its Profusion technology on these programmes to identify Adnectin candidates to Bristol-Myers Squibb at the pre-clinical level.

According to the terms of the agreement, Bristol-Myers Squibb will pay Adnexus an initial fee of $30 million (15.3 million pounds) over three years, with an additional $210 million in milestone payments payable in addition to royalties and sales-based landmark payments.

Bristol-Myers Squibb will be responsible for the development and commercialisation of compounds arising from this partnership, while Adnexus will keep a limited right of co-promotion over the first product from the collaboration achieving US regulatory approval.

John Mendlein, chief executive officer of Adnexus, said: “Bristol-Myers Squibb has world class expertise in oncology and we look forward to working together using our Profusion and Adnectin combination to discover potential therapies for people with cancer.”

He added that recently published data on Angiocept, the firm’s selective VEGFR-2 blocker, confirms the broad use of this class of therapeutics in the field of oncology.

Last December, Bristol-Myers Squibb signed a collaboration agreement with Exelixis for the discovery and development of novel compounds for the treatment of cancer.