Xenova: More dry powder

Xenova Group plc, which bought Cantab Pharmaceuticals plc in February for £34 million ($51 million) in stock, lost the chance to get a quick hit off the purchase with the failure of the first compound out of the deal. But with seven of its eight remaining clinical stage programs coming out of the deal, Xenova still has ways to monetize the deal.

Xenova (LSE:XEN; XNVA, Slough, U.K.) last week said its TA-HSV therapeutic vaccine had failed in Phase II trials in patients with symptomatic recurrent genital herpes and that licensee GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK; LSE:GSK, London, U.K.) was stopping development (see B14). XEN acquired an interest in TA-HSV when it bought Cantab, which put itself up for auction last year after its TH-GW genital warts treatment failed in Phase II (see BioCentury, Feb. 26). ...