Amgen licenses cancer drug to NatPharma
Amgen has licensed an experimental cancer drug to a Chicago biotech company founded and controlled by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong.
NatPharma LLC is licensing the rights to AMG 337 from Thousand Oaks-based Amgen to develop and sell AMG 337.
The drug is an experimental, phase-two cancer treatment. The licensing agreement is the second between Amgen and NantPharma this year. In January, NantWorks, NantPharma’s parent company, agreed with Amgen to license immunotherapeutic drug Ganitumab.
As part of the deal, NatPharma will not be able to sell AMG 337 in Japan, Russia and other unspecified Central Asian countries.
“We are pleased to once again collaborate with NantWorks,” said Sean Harper, Amgen executive vice president of research and redevelopment in a news release.
Harper also said he believes NantWorks’ other propriety drugs will be able to create breakthroughs for patients.
Soon-Shiong also thinks AMG 337 complements NantWorks’ other drugs.
“We believe we are uniquely positioned to address this issue of identifying these difficult subsets of patients and can drive the rapid clinical development of important targeted compounds such as AMG 337 and Ganitumab.”
