BioCentury
ARTICLE | Company News

Dara, Point Therapeutics to reverse merge

October 10, 2007 11:52 PM UTC

Dara (Raleigh, N.C.) and POTP will reverse merge to create Dara BioSciences Inc. Dara stockholders will own 96.4% of the combined company and POTP shareholders will own the remaining 3.6%. Dara's lead compound is KRN5500, a spicamycin derivative licensed from Kirin (Tokyo:2503; KNBWY) that is in Phase II testing to treat chronic neuropathic pain in cancer patients.

Dara said the newco also may conduct trials of POTP's talabostat in chronic lymphocytic leukemia and metastatic melanoma, if FDA releases a hold on development. FDA placed the hold on the inhibitor of fibroblast activation protein (FAP), dipeptidyl peptidase-8 (DPP-8) and DPP-9 in May because of lack of efficacy in Phase III trials to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (See BioCentury Extra, Monday, May 21, 2007). ...