CancerVax completes deal with YM, CIMAB

The U.S. Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control approved a deal under which CNVX receives exclusive development and marketing rights to a cancer compound from CIMAB (Havana, Cuba) that is in Phase II testing and two preclinical cancer compounds from YM Biosciences (TSE:YM; YMBA). YM originally licensed the two compounds from CIMAB.

The Phase II product is SAI-EGF, an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFr) signaling inhibitor to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). CNVX plans to start additional Phase II testing in the next six to nine months. The preclinical compounds are SAI-TGF-alpha, which targets transforming growth factor alpha (TGF alpha), and SAI-EGFR-ECD, which targets the extracellular domain of EGFr. ...