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`Tesaro Rises on $85 Million J&J Cancer Drug Licensing Deal Bloomberg
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`Tesaro Rises on $85 Million J&J
`Cancer Drug Licensing Deal
`
`Doni Bloomfield
`DoniBloomfield
`April 6, 2016 — 7:00 AM EDT
`Updated on April 6, 2016 — 9:58 AM EDT
`
`Shares of Tesaro Inc. gained in New York trading Wednesday after the drugmaker said Johnson &
`Johnson will pay $85 million for rights to develop and sell its experimental pill for prostate cancer,
`a disease area where J&J is looking to defend its dominance.
`
`J&J will invest $50 million in Tesaro stock, paying $44.24 a share, and will pay $35 million in cash
`up front for rights to the cancer drug, called niraparib, according to a statement Wednesday.
`Waltham, Massachusettsbased Tesaro may also get as much as $415 million in potential milestone
`payments from J&J.
`
`Tesaro’s stock rose 5.6 percent to $45.21 at 9:43 a.m.
`
`Prostate cancer has become a more competitive market for J&J as its blockbuster pill Zytiga may
`lose its topselling spot in the area to Medivation Inc.’s Xtandi, according to Bloomberg
`Intelligence. Zytiga was New Brunswick, New Jerseybased J&J’s thirdbestselling drug last year,
`bringing in $2.23 billion.
`
`Tesaro’s drug might be used together with existing prostate cancer drugs, including Zytiga,
`according to Lonnie Moulder, the company’s chief executive officer.
`
`“A combination could address an earlier and broader array of men with prostate cancer than a
`single agent,” Moulder said by phone Tuesday.
`
`Blocking PARP
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`J&J will gain the right to develop and sell Tesaro’s pill for prostate cancer everywhere except
`Japan, according to the statement. Tesaro will get royalties on those sales.
`
`Niraparib is now in latestage trials in ovarian cancer and breast cancer. Jefferies LLC analyst Eun
`Yang said last month that she was “cautiously optimistic” about the drug’s odds of success in a late
`stage breast cancer study.
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`Tesaro Rises on $85 Million J&J Cancer Drug Licensing Deal Bloomberg
`The pill works by blocking PARP, a group of proteins that repair DNA. Some tumor cells lack
`some ability to fix DNA, and developers say that drugs like niraparib will harm cancer cells, while
`leaving normal cells that have backup DNArepair tools relatively healthy. About 15 percent to 35
`percent of severe prostate cancers lack those backup tools, according to the Prostate Cancer
`Foundation.
`
`Prostate cancer is the thirdmost common cancer in the U.S., with 2.8 million men living with the
`disease in 2012, according to the National Institutes of Health. About 14 percent of men will get
`the disease in their lifetime.
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