Bris­tol-My­ers takes a stake in Taris Bio­med­ical; Zai Lab, Five Prime strike a deal to de­vel­op tu­mor im­munother­a­py in Chi­na

Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb has tak­en a stake in Taris Bio­med­ical as part of their new col­lab­o­ra­tion on a Phase Ib study of a com­bo ap­proach for mus­cle in­va­sive blad­der can­cer for pa­tients who are sched­uled for rad­i­cal cys­tec­to­my. They’ll be com­bin­ing Op­di­vo with TAR-200, which con­trols re­lease of a ther­a­py in the blad­der.

Five Prime {FPRX} and Zai Lab have struck a $44 mil­lion deal to bring FPA144, the South San Fran­cis­co biotech’s tar­get­ed im­munother­a­py for tu­mors, to gas­tric and gas­tro-esophageal junc­tion can­cer pa­tients in Chi­na. Shang­hai-based Zai Lab $ZLAB paid $5 mil­lion up­front for de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion rights, and promised $39 in mile­stones. The part­ners plan to jump in­to Phase III (in com­bi­na­tion with chemother­a­py) in the sec­ond half of 2018, with Zai Lab re­spon­si­ble for the Greater Chi­na por­tion of the glob­al study. “Chi­na ac­counts for more than 40% of new gas­tric can­cer cas­es glob­al­ly, so it is crit­i­cal to align strate­gi­cal­ly with a strong col­lab­o­ra­tor with the in­fra­struc­ture, re­la­tion­ships and re­sources to help us ad­vance FPA144 glob­al de­vel­op­ment ex­pe­di­tious­ly,” said Aron Knicker­bock­er, cur­rent COO and in­com­ing CEO, in a state­ment. Per the li­cens­ing agree­ment, both sides are al­so el­i­gi­ble to re­ceive roy­al­ties on sales on each oth­er’s turfs, with Five Prime com­mand­ing a high­er per­cent­age.

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