Millennium, Sunesis Form Deal

Sunesis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SNSS]]), a South San Francisco-based drug developer, said today it has formed a new collaboration with Cambridge, MA-based Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company. The partnership involves development of an orally-delivered pill that inhibits a cancer target called RAF, and another drug made to block an undisclosed cancer target. Sunesis has received a $4 million upfront payment from Millennium, and will be eligible for as much as $60 million in milestones. The two cancer drug candidates had been part of a collaboration Sunesis first formed with Biogen Idec in 2004, although Millennium acquired their rights last year when Biogen said it planned to focus on neurology.

Author: Luke Timmerman

Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.