Bristol-Myers Squibb announced the acquisition of Cormorant Pharmaceuticals, a private Sweden-based pharmaceutical company focused on the development of therapies for cancer and rare diseases. Cormorant’s lead candidate HuMax-IL8 is a phase 1/2 monoclonal antibody targeted against interleukin-8. The rights to HuMax-IL8 were acquired by Cormorant from Genmab A/S in 2012 under an exclusive license agreement.
BMS will also collaborate with PsiOxus Therapeutics to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and preliminary efficacy of PsiOxus’ enadenotucirev, a systemically administered oncolytic adenovirus therapeutic, in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Immuno-Oncology (I-O) agent nivolumab to treat a range of tumor types in late-stage cancer patients.