Pfizer, Avant ink $440M cancer vax deal

Avant Immunotherapeutics is pocketing a $40 million upfront fee and a $10 million equity stake from Pfizer in exchange for the worldwide rights to Avant's experimental brain cancer vaccine. And Avant could pocket $390 million in milestone paydays if all goes well with the drug's development. Avant gained control of CDX-110 after completing a merger with Celldex Therapeutics [1] earlier this year.

CDX-110 is in a mid-stage trial designed to demonstrate its efficacy against a defective protein that promotes brain cancer. Pfizer has agreed to take over all development activities and pay out a double-digit royalty to Avant on an approved therapy. Pfizer also gains exclusive rights to EGFRvIII vaccines for other uses.

The Avant deal is just one more in a string of recent Pfizer biotech acquisitions. As Forbes points out, the world's largest drug developer has been bargain hunting: it purchased publicly-traded Coley Pharmaceuticals [2]and Encysive Pharmaceuticals [3] for $164 million and $195 million respectively. It also snapped up two privately-held biotechs: Serenex [4] and CovX [5]. The deals are designed to bolster Pfizer's biotech and oncology pipeline as it faces the loss of some of its biggest drugs to patent expirations over the next several years.

- here's the release [6]
- read the article [7] from Forbes on Pfizer's cancer strategy

Related Articles:
Avant, Celldex merge in $115M stock deal. Deal report [1]
Big Pharma takes an interest in cancer vaccines. Cancer vaccine report [8]
New tech drives huge growth in vaccine business. Vaccine report [9]
Pfizer's future rests with biotech. Report [10]