US biotech firm Amgen said on Tuesday that it has bought Dark Blue Therapeutics, a UK biotechnology company specialising in cancer treatments, for up to $840m.
Amgen said that University of Oxford spinout Dark Blue is advancing “first-in-class, small molecule-targeted protein degraders” for oncology.
The deal adds to Amgen’s portfolio an investigational small molecule that targets and degrades two proteins (MLLT1/3) that drive specific types of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a fast-growing blood cancer.
Jay Bradner, M.D., executive vice president of research and development at Amgen, said: “Acute myeloid leukemia remains one of the most difficult cancers to treat, and we see an urgent need for new mechanisms capable of changing the trajectory of this disease.
“This acquisition complements and extends our research in targeted protein degradation and leukemia therapeutics, advancing our strategy to invest early in rising medicines for novel therapeutic targets. The adjacency of this program to our considered expertise in cancer biology will propel MLLT1/3-targeting medicines to clinical investigation for patients facing the challenging diagnosis of AML.”
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