In the clin­i­cal waste­land of ag­gres­sive brain can­cers, Philly’s On­co­ceu­tics has churned out promis­ing da­ta with a Phase II can­di­date on the verge of an FDA fil­ing. Chimerix, look­ing to turn around its rep­u­ta­tion — and share price — has jumped on board, putting half-a-bil­lion-dol­lar hopes in On­co­ceu­tics’ drug.

Chimerix will ac­quire pri­vate biotech On­co­ceu­tics and lead can­di­date ONC-201, an oral small mol­e­cule dopamine re­cep­tor D2 an­tag­o­nist and ca­seinolyt­ic pro­tease ag­o­nist cur­rent­ly be­ing test­ed in a Phase II tri­al against re­cur­rent glioma, a form of brain can­cer with a par­tic­u­lar­ly poor prog­no­sis, the com­pa­nies said Fri­day.

On­co­ceu­tics ex­pects piv­otal da­ta on the ONC-201 pro­gram some time this year for glioma pa­tients with the H3 K27M mu­ta­tion, a con­di­tion that comes with a four-month over­all sur­vival prog­no­sis. Along­side ONC-201, On­co­ceu­tics will bring an­oth­er four on­col­o­gy pro­grams in­to the fold for Chimerix, which is ad­vanc­ing its own can­di­date, a gly­cosamino­gly­can com­pound de­rived from porcine he­parin dubbed DSTAT, through a Phase III tri­al in acute myeloid leukemia.

A win with ONC-201 could open a $500 mil­lion mar­ket op­por­tu­ni­ty in re­cur­rent glioma, Chimerix said.

As part of the deal, Chimerix will pay out $78 mil­lion to On­co­ceu­tics in­vestors — half in stock and half in cash — with a po­ten­tial $360 mil­lion in de­vel­op­ment, reg­u­la­to­ry and sales mile­stones down the road. In terms of the $39 mil­lion in cash on the ta­ble, Chimerix will pay out $25 mil­lion at clos­ing and the re­main­ing $14 mil­lion on the first an­niver­sary of clos­ing.

In ad­di­tion, share­hold­ers will be due 15% roy­al­ties on com­bined sales of ONC-201 and an­oth­er pro­gram, ONC206, of up to $750 mil­lion per year and 20% roy­al­ties above $750 mil­lion in an­nu­al rev­enue.

ONC-201 has earned the FDA’s fast track des­ig­na­tion based on da­ta from three tri­als show­ing promis­ing re­sponse rates. The drug’s Phase II study is test­ing the mol­e­cule in 50 pa­tients above the age of 2 who have re­ceived ra­di­a­tion at least 90 days pri­or to en­roll­ment and dis­played ev­i­dence of pro­gres­sive dis­ease, and cer­tain oth­er cri­te­ria, Chimerix said.

The re­sults from that study are planned for a Blind­ed In­de­pen­dent Cen­tral Re­view com­mit­tee’s analy­sis some­time this year, which could form the ba­sis for a reg­u­la­to­ry fil­ing down the road, Chimerix said. Re­sults from the first 30 pa­tients in that study were al­ready re­viewed in a sep­a­rate BI­CR held in No­vem­ber. So far, in over 350 pa­tients treat­ed, ONC-201 has shown a “gen­er­al­ly well tol­er­at­ed” safe­ty pro­file with most com­mon side ef­fects of nau­sea/vom­it­ing, fa­tigue and de­creased lym­pho­cytes.

Ac­quir­ing a promis­ing can­di­date in ag­gres­sive brain can­cers could help turn around the North Car­oli­na biotech with a sketchy past. In mid-2020, Chimerix laid off half its staff af­ter piv­ot­ing work on its oral an­tivi­ral brin­cid­o­fovir to small­pox fol­low­ing a string of clin­i­cal fail­ures. Now, that small­pox ap­pli­ca­tion for brin­cid­o­fovir is up for a PDU­FA date April 7 in what could be the biotech’s first ap­proval. Shares of Chimerix ($CM­RX) were trad­ing up 16% be­fore the bell Fri­day at $5.79.

In the same way that the FDA signs off on flu vaccines every year without requiring large clinical trials to measure their efficacy, the FDA may employ a similar strategy in authorizing variant-focused versions of the mRNA vaccines.

As the world braces for more data on the latest variant Omicron, which may reduce vaccine efficacy, top vaccine developers like Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have promised they can pull together a new vaccine targeted against a specific Covid variant in about 100 days. Since Omicron emerged last week, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and J&J have all said they’ve begun work on Omicron-specific vaccines, if needed.

Dutch VC Forbion is hopping on the ever-lengthening SPAC train.

To be led by Jasper Bos, who joined Forbion Growth as a general partner back in May just after the fund closed at $428 million, Forbion European Acquisition will target late-stage opportunities in the life sciences industry in Europe to merge with and bring onto Nasdaq.

Cyril Lesser, senior controller at Forbion, will be the CFO while Bos serves as CEO.