Astel­las walks away from $450M+ Cy­to­ki­net­ics pact af­ter tak­ing a few ex­tra months to see progress

Months af­ter los­ing long­time part­ner Am­gen on its lead heart drug, Cy­to­ki­net­ics is wav­ing good­bye to an­oth­er al­ly — and with it, more than $450 mil­lion in po­ten­tial mile­stones.

Cy­to­ki­net­ics said in an SEC fil­ing last week that Astel­las is of­fi­cial­ly walk­ing away from a pact to re­search skele­tal sar­com­ere ac­ti­va­tors for dis­eases as­so­ci­at­ed with mus­cle weak­ness. The com­pa­nies had ex­tend­ed the re­search term of their part­ner­ship — which was ini­tial­ly set to ex­pire on Dec. 31 — through March of this year to fin­ish work they couldn’t get done dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, Cy­to­ki­net­ics CEO Robert Blum told End­points News. But on April 27, Astel­las gave writ­ten no­tice that it’s hit­ting the ex­it.

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