Am­gen beefs up its late-stage pipeline with a $400M cash deal to go up against heavy­weight ri­vals in a PhI­II atopic der­mati­tis show­down

Three months af­ter Ky­owa Kirin claimed a hit for their mid-stage pro­gram test­ing the an­ti-OX40 an­ti­body KHK4083 for mod­er­ate to se­vere atopic der­mati­tis, Am­gen is go­ing all-in on the drug, pay­ing $400 mil­lion in cash to line up ex-Japan rights in what’s shap­ing up as an­oth­er big, late-stage ri­val­ry in the megablock­buster field.

We didn’t get to see da­ta from Ky­owa Kirin’s state­ment on the Phase II suc­cess back in Feb­ru­ary, but based on the Am­gen up­front and the com­mit­ment to shared re­search costs and co-pro­mo­tion in the US while back­ing it all up with $850 mil­lion in mile­stones — plus roy­al­ties — the re­sults have to reg­is­ter a sig­nif­i­cant re­sponse in or­der to jus­ti­fy jump­ing in­to this packed field of con­tes­tants.

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