BIND, Amgen end cancer drug collaboration

The company is focused on developing targeted and programmable therapeutics called Accurins.

Both the firms have notified each other that they will not be exercising their options to develop an Accurin incorporating the Amgen therapeutic payload.

BIND Therapeutics chief executive officer Scott Minick said the goal of this research collaboration was to optimize a specific therapeutic payload from Amgen.

"Despite achieving the objective of high tumor concentrations, the results were not sufficiently compelling to proceed forward and both collaborators have agreed that the program will not be continued," Minick said.

"We remain focused on the continued development of our Accurin platform, including our proprietary drug candidate, BIND-014, and our collaborations with AstraZeneca and Pfizer, as well as our recently announced research collaboration with Roche.

"Furthermore, consistent with our previous guidance, we continue to expect that our cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, and research development funding that we expect to receive under our existing collaborations, excluding any potential milestone payments, will fund our operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements through at least mid-2015."

The two firms entered into the 12 month collaboration agreement with the goal of developing a nanomedicine for treating solid cancer tumors based on BIND’s platform for targeted and programmable nanomedicines and Amgen’s undisclosed proprietary cancer compound.

As part of the deal, Amgen had an option to select a new Accurin candidate for further development, and if Amgen failed to exercise its option, then BIND had the right to exercise an exclusive option to obtain a license from Amgen to develop, manufacture and commercialize Accurins containing the Amgen therapeutic payload.

In December 2013, the option period has been extended by six months until July 2014 to allow for completion of the research plan.