Dai­ichi ditch­es Nek­tar fol­low­ing can­cer drug flop

Phar­ma gi­ant Dai­ichi Sankyo is bail­ing on its col­lab­o­ra­tion with Nek­tar Ther­a­peu­tics $NK­TR — and de­mand­ing a $12.5 mil­lion re­fund — fol­low­ing the small­er com­pa­ny’s fail­ure to get its can­cer drug Onzeald ap­proved in Eu­rope.

Dai­ichi Sankyo Eu­rope struck a re­gion­al li­cens­ing deal with Nek­tar back in 2016, pay­ing $20 mil­lion up front for rights to mar­ket the drug in Eu­rope, Switzer­land and Turkey. The duo was gam­bling on an ear­ly ap­proval for Onzeald af­ter re­searchers ex­tract­ed da­ta from their BEA­CON study on 67 ad­vanced breast can­cer pa­tients with a his­to­ry of brain metas­tases. The Com­mit­tee for Med­i­c­i­nal Prod­ucts for Hu­man Use was not im­pressed.

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