Aisling, Clarus acquire stake in ibrutinib royalty stream

Royalty Pharma (New York, N.Y.) sold to VC firms Aisling Capital and Clarus Ventures about 20% of the royalty interest for cancer compound ibrutinib that Royalty acquired from Quest Diagnostics Inc. (NYSE:DGX) last month for $485 million. Royalty said Aisling and Clarus paid just under $97 million for the stake. Quest gained the ibrutinib royalty rights through its 2011 acquisition of Celera Corp. for $670.8 million or about $344 million net of cash. Pharmacyclics Inc. (NASDAQ:PCYC) acquired ibrutinib from Celera in 2006 (see BioCentury, July 29).

Last month, Pharmacyclics submitted an NDA to FDA for the Bruton's tyrosine kinase (Btk) inhibitor that covalently binds to cysteine residue 481 to treat relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small cell lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL). Pharmacyclics is partnered with the Janssen Biotech Inc. subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) to co-develop and co-commercialize ibrutinib, which has breakthrough therapy designation from FDA for MCL and for CLL or SLL in patients with chromosome 17p deletion, as well as for Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia (see BioCentury This Week, June 30). ...