OncoMed Pharmaceuticals had two unfortunate setbacks as its experimental pancreatic cancer drug failed a mid-stage study and Bayer decided not to exercise its option on other cancer drugs.
The California-based clinical-stage biopharma company announced that its clinical trial of demcizumab in combination with Celegene's Abraxane plus gemcitabine in previously untreated patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer failed to meet the primary endpoint of progression-free survival.
On the same day, the company also announced that Bayer Pharma had decided not to exercise its option to license the first-in-class Wnt pathway inhibitors vantictumab and ipafricept for "strategic reasons." Effective June 2017, OncoMed will retain worldwide development and commercialization rights to vantictumab, ipafricept and all other Wnt pathway biologics under the collaboration.