Epizyme shares rocket up on news of $29M milestone awards

Shares of the newly public biotech Epizyme ($EPZM) rocketed up a whopping 66% after the company announced that a pair of high-profile partners achieved significant goals laid out in their collaborations with the biotech, triggering a total of $29 million in milestone payments. The EPZ-5676 DOT1L inhibitor clinical program hit the proof-of-concept mark, earning a $25 million payment from Celgene ($CELG). And GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) is paying $4 million after one of the three histone methyltransferase targets in their partnership achieved a milestone. "2013 was a year of important accomplishments for Epizyme," said CEO Robert Gould in a statement. "We have achieved the proof of concept milestone for EPZ-5676, our first-in-class DOT1L inhibitor, in our Celgene collaboration, initiated an ongoing Phase 1 study of EPZ-6438, our first-in-class EZH2 inhibitor, in our Eisai collaboration, achieved a development candidate milestone in our GSK collaboration, and continue to advance our pipeline of personalized therapeutics for patients with genetically defined cancers." Release