Back from the dead: Nek­tar hunts a block­buster deal as opi­oid '181 looks less ad­dic­tive than oxy

Af­ter whip­ping up some up­beat an­a­lyst as­sess­ments in March with a pos­i­tive late-stage ef­fi­ca­cy study for their mu-opi­oid pain ther­a­py NK­TR-181, Nek­tar Ther­a­peu­tics has now put the fin­ish­ing touch­es to its deal pack­age on the drug with more Phase III da­ta to po­si­tion this as a first-of-its-kind opi­oid that ad­dicts can’t abuse, no mat­ter what they do to it, while ef­fec­tive­ly com­bat­ing pain.

With a big fo­cus on on­col­o­gy, Nek­tar $NK­TR has made it clear that they don’t plan to han­dle this so­lo, look­ing to ei­ther li­cens­ing it out com­plete­ly or work­ing on a co-mar­ket­ing pact. But CEO Howard Robin clear­ly wants to do this on the ba­sis that NK­TR-181 is the so­lu­tion to the opi­oid cri­sis that has been grab­bing head­lines from coast-to-coast.

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