Johnson & Johnson's ($JNJ) busy deal team in California has nailed down another development pact--this time zeroing in on new technology at a Berkeley biotech that will be used to expand its considerable efforts on prostate cancer R&D. And the deal includes rights to a failed cancer vaccine program which has recently sparked some positive trial results in a follow-up effort aimed at salvaging the work.
 |
| Aduro CEO Stephen Isaacs |
This new deal from the J&J Innovation center zeroes in on a pact to license therapeutic candidates from Aduro BioTech's drug development platform, which is focused on kicking up an immune response. The platform tech involves the use of live-attenuated double deleted Listeria monocytogenes strains to spawn the antigens needed to provoke an immune system attack on cancer.
Aduro didn't break down the dollars in the deal, but the whole package of milestones and an upfront tallies up to $365 million, most of which is likely back ended.
The second part of their deal revolves around GVAX. Aduro obtained the rights to GVAX after BioSante($BPAX) failed rather spectacularly in its effort to prove that the therapeutic vaccine could fight cancer. A late-stage study with GVAX was halted back in 2008 after patients in the therapeutic arm began dying at a faster pace than the patients in the chemo arm. Aduro combined GVAX with another one of its pipeline drugs and reported some positive results from a mid-stage study for pancreatic cancer in January.
Now J&J is following up by obtaining the rights to GVAX to use specifically for prostate cancer. Cancer vaccines have failed to impress analysts repeatedly in the clinic as a monotherapy, but there is a strong feeling in some cancer research circles that they can serve an important role in combination therapies.
The deal underscores J&J's commitment to prostate cancer. The pharma giant has been changing the standard of care with Zytiga, and recently bought out Aragon in a billion-dollar deal to get its hand on a second-gen therapy.
"We are pleased to provide Janssen with novel immunotherapies engineered specifically for this indication," said Aduro CEO Stephen Isaacs in a statement. "We believe this is an important validation of our platform strategy and we are excited to have the Janssen development team taking the lead in advancing the prostate cancer program. Separately, we look forward to continued progress with our LADD platform in a broad array of other oncology indications, including pancreatic cancer, mesothelioma, non-small cell lung cancer and glioblastoma among others."
- here's the release
Special Report: Johnson & Johnson - The top R&D spenders in biopharma in 2013