Af­ter a long march with Cabo, Ex­elix­is is ex­pand­ing its fo­cus with an an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate deal

Nine years ago, when Michael Mor­ris­sey took over the helm at Ex­elix­is as George Scan­gos head­ed to Bio­gen, he made a care­ful point of cir­cling the wag­ons around Cabome­tyx and tak­ing it in­to the mar­ket. Now, he and the ex­ec­u­tive team are tak­ing an­oth­er step out­side that path as the biotech slow­ly ex­pands its fo­cus and pipeline.

It’s not a big mon­ey deal. Ex­elix­is is pay­ing $7.5 mil­lion — plus pre­clin­i­cal fi­nanc­ing sup­port — to gain an ex­clu­sive li­cens­ing op­tion on an an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate called ICON-2 from Icon­ic Ther­a­peu­tics. Ex­elix­is CSO Pe­ter Lamb says he likes the way this drug tar­gets Tis­sue Fac­tor. The way Ex­elix­is sees it:

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