Re­mem­ber mo­melo­tinib? Gilead un­loads shelved JAK in­hibitor for to­ken $3M pay­ment from its for­mer de­vel­op­ers

About 6 years ago, Gilead $GILD paid $510 mil­lion in cash to bag YM Bio­Sciences and its on­ly drug — a once-promis­ing JAK in­hibitor lat­er named mo­melo­tinib for myelofi­bro­sis. The drug, how­ev­er, turned out to be an em­bar­rass­ing dud in the clin­ic, and now the big biotech is sweep­ing it out in a low-dol­lar deal with Sier­ra On­col­o­gy — which is run by the peo­ple who may know this drug best.

Sier­ra has agreed to pay Gilead on­ly $3 mil­lion in cash for the as­set, and they plan to push it in­to a new late-stage study to get the da­ta they need. That will come on top of two dis­ap­point­ing piv­otal tri­als at Gilead that read out in late 2016.

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