The Leverkusen-based pharmaceutical and agricultural company announced on Wednesday that it has entered into a collaboration with the US biotech company NextRNA to develop novel cancer drugs. As part of the partnership, NextRNA will receive up to 547 million dollars from Bayer, including upfront and success-based milestone payments, research funding and tiered license fees. The plan is to develop two oncology programs, the first of which is currently in early preclinical development at NextRNA.
Replenishing the pharmaceutical pipeline is essential for Bayer, as the patents on its bestsellers - the anticoagulant Xarelto and the ophthalmic drug Eylea - expire in the middle of the decade. However, its greatest hope, the anticoagulant Asundexian, flopped in a crucial clinical trial at the end of last year. The Group had expected it to have a peak sales potential of more than five billion euros, more than any of its other drugs.
To strengthen its pharmaceutical pipeline, Bayer had already announced in March the purchase of the rights to a new heart drug that could soon be launched on the market - the application for marketing authorization was submitted to the European Medicines Agency in January. In this deal, Bayer is putting up to 310 million dollars on the table for upfront payments and short-term success-based milestone payments.
(Report by Patricia Weiß, edited by Myria Mildenberger. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)
