Oncology Venture A/S acquires option from R-Pharm to the European rights for Ixempra to treat breast cancer.

Oncology Venture A/S announced that the company has obtained an exclusive option to in-license the European rights to Ixempra (ixabepilone) from the R- Pharm.

According to the agreement, Oncology Venture will evaluate Ixempra (ixabepilone), together with its DRP companion diagnostic, in European clinical trials in patients with metastatic breast cancer. If the results are convincing Oncology Venture has the option to exclusively in-license the commercial rights for the European Union (EU) market. The broadened pipeline is not expected to increase Oncology Venture�s cost base since the clinical development of ixabepilone will be financed through a special purpose vehicle/joint venture to be offered to interested investors while Oncology Venture will continue to control the program. Oncology Venture�s strategy is to make use of its proprietary Drug Response Prediction (DRP ) biomarker platform to progress its broad pipeline of late-stage oncology drug candidates. The company in-licenses drug candidates that have previously shown good clinical efficacy and where the DRP technology is expected to add value for cancer patients as a companion diagnostic to the drug. The DRP companion diagnostic enables identification of the patient population most likely to benefit from the drug and then only treating those patients. After conducting clinical studies that prove a better efficacy of its drug candidates, Oncology Venture can apply for market approval or out-license the drug candidate at a higher value inflection point.

Comment: The cancer drug ixabepilone was originally developed by the pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) and was approved for treating metastatic breast cancer by the FDA in the US in 2007 but was not approved by The European Medicines Agency�s (EMA) for use in Europe. R-Pharm U.S. acquired ixabepilone from BMS in July 2015 and the product is today marketed by R-Pharm in the USA, as well as certain countries in South America, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein.