US-based biopharmaceutical company AbbVie will acquire biotechnology company Stemcentrx for nearly $5.8bn.
AbbVie will take over Stemcentrx along with its major late-stage asset rovalpituzumab tesirine (Rova-T), which at present is in registrational trials for small cell lung cancer, also known as small-cell carcinoma (SCLC).
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Rova-T is a biomarker-specific therapy and obtained from cancer stem cells and targets delta-like protein 3 (DLL3), which is expressed in more than 80% of SCLC patient tumours and is not present in healthy tissue.
The biopharmaceutical company will fund about $2bn of the total transaction amount in cash while the remaining portion will be funded with stock.
AbbVie chairman and CEO Richard A. Gonzalez said: "The addition of Stemcentrx and its late-stage compound Rova-T provide AbbVie with a unique platform in solid tumour therapeutics and complement our leadership position in hematologic oncology.
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"We believe the acquisition of Stemcentrx will strengthen and accelerate our ability to deliver innovative therapies that will have a remarkable impact on patients’ lives."
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By GlobalDataExpected to close in the second quarter of this year, the transaction is dependent on customary closing conditions and expiration or termination of the applicable waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act.
In Phase 1/2 studies of relapsed SCLC patients who have earlier failed one or more standard therapies, Rova-T exhibited overall response rates of 44% in the patients who are detected with high expression of DLL3.
The expression of DLL3 suggests that Rova-T might also prove helpful for a wide range of tumour types, including glioblastoma multiforme, metastatic melanoma, pancreatic, prostate and colorectal cancers.
In such cases DLL3 expression varies from 50% to 80%.
Rova-T not only combines a targeted antibody that supplies a cytotoxic agent directly to the DLL3-expressing cancer cells, but also reduces toxicity to healthy cells.
Currently, Rova-T has been submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Breakthrough Therapy designation, and is being examined as a third-line treatment in SCLC, which so far has no approved therapy.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre Thoracic Oncology Service chief Charles Rudin said: "Rova-T is the first predictive biomarker-based therapy associated with drug efficacy in small cell lung cancer, and that is a big deal for this difficult disease."
Stemcentrx has four other compounds in clinical trials across many solid tumour indications such as triple-negative breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer and ovarian cancer.
Image: Micrograph of small cell lung cancer. Photo: courtesy of Nephron.
