Lit­tle Drag­on­fly bursts on­to the I/O scene with a $33M Cel­gene deal and some of the biggest names in biotech

For a lit­tle biotech that’s been keep­ing a very low pro­file, Drag­on­fly has some very big names be­hind it. This morn­ing, it al­so has a big part­ner you def­i­nite­ly have heard of — Cel­gene — step­ping in with a siz­able pre­clin­i­cal up­front for a deal that will cer­tain­ly put this group on the in­dus­try map as one to watch.

Cel­gene is fronting a 5-year col­lab­o­ra­tion pact with a $33 mil­lion pay­ment to Cam­bridge, MA-based Drag­on­fly Ther­a­peu­tics. Mile­stones? I’m as­sum­ing they’re plen­ti­ful, giv­en the ear­ly stage of the deal, but no one wants to say right now. And that’s the way this biotech rolls, as we saw just weeks ago when Cel­gene jumped in to a syn­di­cate to back an un­spec­i­fied round for this up­start — demon­strat­ing the big biotech’s ap­petite for a piece of the eq­ui­ty in the com­pa­nies it part­ners with.

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