September 16, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
SUMMIT, N.J. – Is Celgene about to close a deal to acquire another company? It appears the company is looking to snap up Swiss-based EngMab AG, the maker of T-cell bispecific antibodies and B-cell maturation antigens.
A filing with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission shows a Sept. 13 acquisition of EngMab, but as of now, Celgene said there’s no deal, Endpoints reported. EngMab has licensed its T-cell technology from Roche , Endpoints said.
“A deal has not completed,” a Celgene spokesperson told Endpoints in an email. “We cannot comment any further at this time.”
Endpoints noted that Celgene, which has become a best-friend of sorts to multiple companies across the industry, is heavily involved with the type of work that EngMab is doing, which would make that company a good fit under the Celgene umbrella. Since 2014 Celgene has spent more than $3 billion in partnerships, most noticeably the $1 billion the company invested in a 10-year partnership with Juno Therapeutics or the more recent deal with Jounce Therapeutics that could be worth up to $2.5 billion. Celgene also has collaborations with companies like Agios , Bluebird Bio , Epizyme and others. In 2014, Celgene entered into 10 deals, shelling out an average of $222 million in upfront payments to its partners. Celgene’s partnership goals has been a strategic effort to diversify revenue streams so it is not so financially dependent on its blockbuster blood cancer drug, Revlimid.
Another startup that Celgene backed recently is California-based FLX Bio, a company specializing in cancer treatments. FLX’s FLX925 is a selective inhibitor of FLT3 and CDK4/6 and is being studied in a proof-of-concept study in patients with acute myeloid leukemia. The drug is moving into a Phase I clinical trial. FLX925‘s dual-inhibitor action may be more effective in treating FLT3-mutated AML than other FLT3 inhibitors, resulting in greater clinical benefit. Furthermore, FLX925 has the potential to treat a wider array of cancers beyond AML, the company said on its website—again, an area of interest to Celgene.
In April Celgene Corporation struck two deals with other pharmaceutical companies with a combined value of $110 million to advance its oncology platform, continuing the cancer drugmaking company’s deal making trend to advance its oncology pipeline. Celgene entered into an $80 million agreement with Agios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to develop AG-881, a small molecule that has shown in preclinical studies to fully penetrate the blood brain barrier and inhibit isocitrate dehydrogenase-1 (IDH1) and IDH2 mutant cancer models. Celgene also announced today it struck a $30 million agreement with one-year-old Canada-based Northern Biologics to advance that company’s work in oncology and fibrosis therapeutics.
Citing Jeffries analyst Brian Abrahams, Endpoints said EngMab’s experimental drug EM801 “was potent and showed dose-dependent killing of the primary MM cells.”
“We continue to see BCMA as a promising target in MM, given the target is estimated to be present in 60 to 70 percent of myeloma cases, is primarily expressed by plasma cells, and does not appear to be heavily involved in other B cells processes,” Abrahams said, according to Endpoints.
