ASLAN Pharmaceuticals Ltd (亞獅康) yesterday announced that US-based Array BioPharma Inc has granted the company full global rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize varlitinib, an inhibitor that helps control tumor growth which is being developed for a variety of cancer types.
The new agreement replaces a pact signed in 2011 that granted ASLAN the rights to develop varlitinib through proof of concept, as well as seeking a partner to complete phase III clinical trials and commercialization approval processes, the Singaporean company said.
Vartlitinib has demonstrated strong efficacy in the studies since 2011 in biliary tract, gastric, breast and colorectal cancer, ASLAN chief executive officer Carl Firth said in a statement.
“We want to take the drug to the market and commercialize it ourselves in certain regions, which was not contemplated under the original agreement,” Firth said.
The new agreement allows the company to retain much more downstream value from the firm’s commercial and partnering activities, he said.
Array is eligible to receive 50 percent of all varlitinib revenue, which was unchanged from the previous agreement, an investor relations officer at ASLAN said, adding that the company now has the freedom to decide whether to enlist partners or pursue commercialization in-house on a market-by-market basis.
Under the new agreement, ASLAN will make an upfront payment of US$12 million to Array on signature and a payment of up to US$12 million within the next year.
The company has also agreed to pay up to US$30 million in development and US$75 million in commercial milestones for varlitinib, as well as royalties as a percentage in the low double digits of net sales of the drug.
The US Food and Drug Administration offered the orphan drug designation to varlitinib as a treatment for cholangiocarcinoma in 2015 and gastric cancer in 2016, the company said.
Shares in ASLAN yesterday fell 0.15 percent to close at NT$33.65 on the Taipei Exchange.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
RSS