Dutch firm Kiadis BV and Canadian company Celmed BioSciences Inc. plan to combine their operations to build a broad oncology pipeline of both early stage and clinical-stage candidates.

Financial terms of the merger were not disclosed, but Kiadis CEO Manja Bouman called the deal "highly complementary" for the private companies, both of which were "in the position of looking for further growth."

Celmed, which is in clinical development with its lead programs in bone marrow transplant in blood cancer and aggressive malignancies, was a "natural fit" with Kiadis' early development programs, Bouman told BioWorld Today.

"It was about enriching the pipeline," she added.

The combined entity - to be called Kiadis Pharma BV - will retain headquarters at Kiadis' facility in Groningen, the Netherlands, with Celmed's Montreal facility serving as a supporting location. The 35 employees will be managed by a cross-Atlantic team headed by Bouman.

The merger is subject to approval from both firms' shareholders, as well as regulatory approvals and closing conditions.

Kiadis Pharma's small-molecule pipeline will lead off with ATIR, a product aimed at allowing blood cancer patients to receive bone marrow transplants without requiring access to a matched donor. Nine patients have been treated with ATIR in an ongoing Phase I/II trial, and early results are expected to be presented next week at the American Society of Hematology meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Following ATIR is NB1011, a compound aimed at treating the most aggressive cancers by exploiting the enzyme thymidylate synthase. That product, which was picked up by Celmed in its 2004 acquisition of San Diego-based NewBiotics Inc., is in Phase I/II development. (See BioWorld Today, June 9, 2004.)

The combination of Kiadis and Celmed brings together three platform technologies: Kiadis' BioSelect platform, designed for screening of synthetic or natural compound sources; Celmed's Theralux, a system comprising a photosensitive drug and a device for eliminating unwanted cells for treating blood and bone marrow transplantation in cancer; and the Enzyme Catalyzed Therapeutic Activation (ECTA) platform that harnesses the power of a resistant enzyme to deliver a therapeutic approach.

All three of those will "feed the product development pipeline," Bouman said.

Kiadis attempted to merge three years ago with Leverkusen, Germany-based Biofrontera Pharmaceuticals GmbH, to combine drug discovery efforts with a focus on pain and central nervous system diseases. But that deal was terminated a few months later after Biofrontera opted, instead, to acquire a discovery and chemistry platform by purchasing bioLeads GmbH, of Heidelberg, Germany.

Kiadis also has ongoing collaborations with NV Organon, of Oss, the Netherlands, and Oxford BioMedica plc, of Oxford, UK.

Celmed emerged in 2001 as a spinout of Montreal-based Theratechnologies Inc., and operated as a subsidiary of that firm until mid-2004, when Theratechnologies sold its remaining 37 percent interest to Celmed shareholders for $8.4 million.