World Pharma Today

OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a company developing novel therapeutics targeting cancer stem cells, today announced it has expanded its collaboration with Bayer HealthCare. Bayer’s U.S. affiliate will manufacture clinical supplies of a second Wnt inhibitor in the alliance. Bayer will manufacture the bulk drug substance at its Berkeley, California clinical manufacturing center to support Phase 1 clinical testing planned to commence in 2012. This is an addition to OncoMed’s existing relationship with Bayer.

“We are pleased to announce this expansion of our partnership with Bayer,” said Paul Hastings, President and Chief Executive Officer of OncoMed Pharmaceuticals. “We continue to make significant progress in our Wnt pathway programs, and this manufacturing agreement underscores the commitment of both parties to collaboratively advance breakthrough anticancer stem cell programs into development.”

“At Bayer we have extensive experience in process development and manufacturing a wide variety of proteins, including complex glycoproteins,” said Harald Dinter, Vice President of Global Biologics Development for Bayer HealthCare. “This extension of our partnership with OncoMed to include clinical manufacturing of this additional product candidate is characteristic of our approach to working side-by-side in collaborations to advance novel therapeutic candidates to patient care.”

About the OncoMed-Bayer Collaboration

In June 2010, OncoMed and Bayer HealthCare entered into a broad strategic alliance valued at up to $387.5M per program, plus potential double-digit royalties, to develop cancer stem cell antibody and protein therapeutics targeting the Wnt signaling pathway. The first program from the collaboration, antibody therapeutic product candidate OMP-18R5, is expected to enter clinical testing in 2011. Financial terms of the manufacturing agreement were not disclosed, and this agreement does not alter any of the financial terms of the original collaboration.