Bristol-Myers Squibb Buys Privately Held Cormorant Pharmaceuticals

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company BMY and Cormorant Pharmaceuticals revealed Tuesday that the former has acquired privately held Cormorant Pharmaceuticals' all outstanding capital stock. According to the company, the transaction included upfront, as well as near term contingent milestone payments of a maximum of $95 million and additional contingent consideration of a maximum of $425 million upon the achievement of some development and regulatory milestones. Other terms were not disclosed.

Bristol-Myers believes the acquisition provided it with complete rights to Cormorant's HuMax-IL8 antibody program and the lead candidate HuMax-IL8, a Phase 1/2 monoclonal antibody targeted against interleukin-8 (IL-8). Incidentally, it represented a potentially complementary immuno-oncology mechanism of action to T-cell directed antibodies and co-stimulatory molecules.

The company's EVP and Chief Scientific Officer, Francis Cuss, commented, "We believe combination therapy will be foundational to delivering the potential for long-term survival for patients, and the opportunity to develop the HuMax-IL8 antibody program together with our broad Immuno-Oncology pipeline enables us to accelerate the next wave of potentially transformational immunotherapies."

Bristol-Myer said IL-8 is a protein expressed by several solid tumors within the tumor microenvironment suppressing the immune system and boosting the ability of tumors to metastasize. By targeting IL-8, the company added that HuMax-IL8 offers the potential to improve immune response and lift the efficacy of existing cancer medicines through combination therapy. Cormorant acquired the rights to HuMax-IL8 from Genmab A/S in 2012 under an exclusive license agreement.