Today, MSD announced that it will develop small molecule anticancer drugs, including KRAS inhibitors, in cooperation with Taiho and Astex of Otsuka pharmaceutical
MSD will pay a down payment of US $50 million and a total of US $2.5 billion for various odometers
The three companies will merge pre clinical related projects and share technical secrets
MSD will acquire the exclusive global rights and interests of the products under research, and be responsible for the R & D and marketing of these projects
Taiho will retain some rights and interests in Japan and the Asia Pacific region
Astex, originally a UK company, was acquired by Otsuka in 2013
Now, we have two cooperation projects with Taiho, another subsidiary of Otsuka
Among them, cedazuridine and decitabine combination astx727 have achieved clinical success in a phase III clinical project called ascertain, but sgi-110 (guadecitabine), the main asset, failed in a phase III clinical project of first-line AML in 2018
The core competitiveness of Astex is a pyramid Gamma Based on the platform of fragment drug design (FBDD), this technology is sometimes more efficient than HTS for difficult drug targets
Venatoclax, the BCL inhibitor, was found by this technology
It is generally believed that traditional HTS technology is difficult to find this drug
However, FBDD rarely finds such a difficult drug, which is also a technology that needs to be improved, but at least provides a new approach.
