Can­cer pow­er­house As­traZeneca rolls the dice on a $75M cash bet on a buzzy up­start in the on­col­o­gy field

Af­ter es­tab­lish­ing it­self in the front ranks of can­cer drug de­vel­op­ers and mar­keters, As­traZeneca is putting its sci­en­tif­ic shoul­der — and a sig­nif­i­cant amount of cash — be­hind the wheel of a brash new up­start in the biotech world.

The phar­ma gi­ant trum­pet­ed news this morn­ing that it is hand­ing over $75 mil­lion up­front to al­ly it­self with Scor­pi­on Ther­a­peu­tics, one of those biotechs that was new­ly birthed by some top sci­en­tif­ic, ven­ture and ex­ec­u­tive tal­ent and be­queathed with a for­tune by way of a bankroll to ad­vance an on­ly hazi­ly ex­plained drug plat­form. And they are still very much in the dis­cov­ery and pre­clin­i­cal phase.

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