Flush with cash from its $146 million A round last year, Clovis Oncology is ramping up a cancer drug pact it has with Norway's Clavis Pharma, adding $10 million in an upfront fee and $195M in potential regulatory and sales milestones in exchange for widening its commercial rights to a mid-stage pancreatic cancer drug. The deal extension expands its rights from the Americas and Europe to include Asia and the rest of the world.
Clovis and Clavis originally tied the knot last fall in a $380 million development and commercialization deal covering CP-4126, a lipid-conjugated form of the anti-cancer drug gemcitabine.
"We have established a strong collaboration with Clavis and believe this allows us to develop the drug consistently in Japan, China and additional Asian and international markets," said Clovis CEO Patrick Mahaffy. "We are already planning the development of our preclinical lung cancer compound in Asia so this expansion of our agreement with Clavis is also highly complementary to our global development and commercialization strategy."
The deal extension will put $586 million on the line for the one drug. But Clovis has been inking a number of deals, including one with Avila Therapeutics, as it pursues its plan to in-license a slate of cancer programs and build a biotech company around them. Mahaffey and several of his colleagues at Clovis were all engaged at Pharmion, a developer they sold for $2.9 billion.
- see the Clavis release