Pfiz­er un­cou­ples from Gly­coMimet­ics and its failed sick­le cell dis­ease drug

Once large­ly over­looked, sick­le cell dis­ease (SCD) has re­cent­ly seen a flur­ry of ap­provals. For Pfiz­er — an SCD drug that has fal­tered in the piv­otal stage of de­vel­op­ment — cer­tain­ly doesn’t pass muster, not in this mar­ket. On Mon­day, the 170-year-old com­pa­ny sev­ered ties with Mary­land-based Gly­coMimet­ics, walk­ing away from the al­liance the two en­tered in­to near­ly a decade ago.

Pfiz­er tied up with the Rockville biotech to work on an ex­per­i­men­tal drug — riv­ipansel — for va­so-oc­clu­sive crises that oc­cur as a re­sult of SCD in a deal worth up to $340 mil­lion ($22.5 mil­lion up­front, with $115 mil­lion — which was lat­er ad­just­ed to $80 mil­lion — in de­vel­op­ment mile­stones) in 2011. At the time, the ther­a­py had been grant­ed or­phan drug and fast track sta­tus and was in a Phase II tri­al.

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