Though falling short of the outright takeover that some may have hoped for, Merck & Co. Inc.’s dual tie-ups with Seattle Genetics Inc. (Seagen) put the latter in solid position to shop for acquisitions of its own.
As expected – and well ahead of the Aug. 20 PDUFA date – Bothell, Wash-based Seattle Genetics Inc. (Seagen) won FDA clearance for the oral small-molecule breast cancer therapy tucatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor branded Tukysa.
Benefit for patients with disease that has spread to the brain put a special shine on top-line data rolled out by Seattle Genetics Inc. (Seagen) from the HER2Climb study, an experiment to test the oral small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) tucatinib, designed as highly selective for HER2 without significantly knocking down EGFR.