Charles Hugh-Jones, Volastra CEO

On heels of land­mark ap­proval, Bris­tol My­ers Squibb em­barks on bil­lion-dol­lar on­col­o­gy deal with metasta­t­ic can­cer start­up

Af­ter the FDA ap­proved BMS’s new LAG-3 on­col­o­gy drug late last week, Bris­tol My­ers Squibb is div­ing head­first in­to a hy­per-niche field of on­col­o­gy re­search. The big phar­ma is pair­ing up with NYC-based biotech Volas­tra Ther­a­peu­tics, found­ed two years ago by re­searchers out of Memo­r­i­al Sloan Ket­ter­ing and Cor­nell.

The phar­ma and the biotech an­nounced Mon­day morn­ing a mul­ti-year R&D col­lab­o­ra­tion, with Bris­tol My­ers pay­ing $30 mil­lion up­front to Volas­tra and throw­ing in a po­ten­tial $1.1 bil­lion in mile­stones, plus an ad­di­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ty for roy­al­ties.

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