Dive Brief:
- A partnership initiated between Teva and OncoGenex in 2009 has been scuttled as Teva backs out of a deal to co-develop a cancer drug, custirsen.
- In addition to being in phase III trials for prostate cancer, custirsen is also being studied for its use in treating non-small cell carcinoma. Earlier this year, Teva and OncoGenix announced that the drug had failed in another phase III prostate cancer trial.
- Teva has paid a break-up fee of $27 million to exit the deal, FierceBiotech reports, and previously paid $60 million up front when the deal was initiated.
Dive Insight:
Despite the fact that Teva is shifting its strategic focus away from oncology R&D, OncoGenex, a small biotech company based in Bothell, Washington, plans to move forward with the final stages of development of custirsen.
OncoGenex is also trying to expedite the regulatory process by paring back phase III enrollment. Based on available information, seems that Teva and OncoGenex now have different opinions on the promise of targeting the protein clusterin, which is implicated in the survival of cancer cells and resistance to treatment.
For now, OncoGenex has every intention of seeing this through to the end - assuming that the necessary funding is available.