Specialty-drug giant and IBD 50 stock Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) agreed to pay big pharma AstraZeneca (AZN) up to $445 million in a licensing deal for a psoriasis drug candidate that had proved effective but also shown a suicide risk in clinical trials. Valeant agreed to pay AstraZeneca $100 million upfront for brodalumab, and committed up to $170 million in prelaunch milestones and $175 million in sales milestones. As phase three studies in
Shares of Juno Therapeutics (JUNO) soared as high as 16% in trading Tuesday on reports that AstraZeneca’s (AZN) CEO said he saw Juno as a potential acquisition target. Bloomberg came out with the full story on its interview with AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot in the early afternoon, but Juno’s stock first jumped in midmorning when Bloomberg terminal subscribers got a few tidbits that were then passed along through StreetInsider and other media
Big pharma AstraZeneca (AZN) and big biotech Amgen (AMGN) were both down nearly 3% in heavy trading Tuesday, after Amgen said late Friday that it was withdrawing from their partnership to develop an immunology drug after some patients killed themselves. Amgen said that “suicidal ideation and behavior” in some patients in the clinical trials of brodalumab, which is being tested for psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and axial spondyloarthritis, would