Dive Brief:
- San Francisco-based Medivation is building a small empire of oncology drugs, using the prostate cancer drug Xtandi as a foundation. This is luring in larger companies interested in a deal, reportedly including Sanofi and AstraZeneca.
- The company has now hired JP Morgan to help handle the interest, although it has no plans to sell yet, reports Reuters citing people familiar with the matter.
- Xtandi has been in the news recently. A number of lawmakers recently asked the National Institutes of Health to consider using its authority to lower the drug's price, which costs $129,000 a year in the U.S.
Dive Insight:
Xtandi was approved in 2012 for second line treatment of a specific form of prostate cancer (called mCRPC) but the FDA has since expanded its label. EvaluatePharma projects sales of $1.87 billion this year, with revenues of $4.78 billion by 2020.
As an oral, once-daily androgen receptor inhibitor capsule, Xtandi provides an important treatment option for men with mCRPC and all signs point to the drug becoming a mega-blockbuster.
In addition to Xtandi, Medivation has a bladder cancer drug and a multiple myeloma drug in its pipeline.
Nonetheless, even with Xtandi in its portfolio, Medivation could not expect the same price now that it might have gotten in 2014. The stock peaked at $66 per share, tanked to $26 during major turmoil in the biotech market last year and is now hovering at the $43 per share mark.