As Dai­ichi Sankyo-part­nered breast can­cer drug march­es to­ward fin­ish line, As­traZeneca brings in Cana­di­an sci­en­tist Sunil Ver­ma to rev up R&D

Months af­ter As­traZeneca chief Pas­cal So­ri­ot forced out Med­Im­mune’s head of clin­i­cal on­col­o­gy de­vel­op­ment Mo­hammed Dar in a sweep­ing re­struc­tur­ing, the British drug­mak­er is ush­er­ing in Sunil Ver­ma as head of breast can­cer strat­e­gy as part of its on­col­o­gy R&D wing, as it sharp­ens its fo­cus on its keen­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed Dai­ichi Sankyo-part­nered an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate.

Buoyed by the per­for­mance of As­traZeneca’s on­col­o­gy drugs, in March So­ri­ot bet big to part­ner with Dai­ichi Sankyo on its ex­per­i­men­tal breast can­cer drug, with $1.35 bil­lion up­front in a deal worth up to rough­ly $7 bil­lion. Last week, the Japan­ese drug­mak­er said the ther­a­py had cleared a piv­otal mid-stage study, paving the way for reg­u­la­to­ry sub­mis­sions in the first half of fis­cal 2019.

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