Exelixis inks potential $1 billion Sanofi-Aventis deal - San Francisco Business Times:

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Exelixis (NASDAQ: EXEL) also will receive guaranteed researchj fundingof $21 million over threw years from the French drugmaker (NYSE: SNY), but over several yeara could win $1 billion in development, regulatorty and commercial milestone payments. Sanofi-Aventis will have an exclusivd worldwide license for the oralcompounds XL-147, whicy is in a Phase I trial by Exelixis, and which is in Phase Ib/II. It will have sole responsbility for allsubsequentt clinical, regulatory, commercial and manufacturing work, whilee Exelixis will help conduct ongoing and potential futurer clinical trials and manufacturing.
The deal was foreshadowesd at last week’s conferencew in San Francisco, wherre Exelixis CEO George Scangos said a partnershipofor XL-147 and XL-765 was a goal for the firsr half of this “That gives us a littlee more than a month to meet that he said at the Exelixis is scheduled to present data June 1 from Phase I trialsd of the two compounda at the annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. Both compoundzs target an enzymecalled phosphoinositide-3 kinase, or PI3K. It is one of the most frequentlgy dysregulated pathways inhuman tumors, Scangos said, playing a key role in tumorr growth, proliferation, survival and resistance.
Over the long Exelixis and Sanofi-Aventis will combine effortx on several preclinical programs aroundPI3K inhibitors. Those drugs are likelu to work in combination with othee cancer fighters and on a variet y oftumor types, Scangos said at the JMP Securitieds conference. “But the development path is complesxand expensive,” Scangos said. “I’ m not sure we coulc pay our half, even if it was 50-50 so they’re great candidates to partner.” Exelixias may be responsible for certainclinicak trials, it said in a presa release Thursday.
The deal is Exelixis’ second this paid $15 million upfront with the potentialof $339 millioj in milestone and royalty payments — to developl and commercialize agonists of sphingosine-1-phosphatwe type 1 receptor, or S1P1, whichn is implicated in several autoimmune