Drug is expected to enter clinical testing in cancer during 2012.

OncoMed Pharmaceuticals and Bayer HealthCare have expanded their cancer stem cell therapeutics collaboration with a new manufacturing deal. The agreement will see Bayer’s Berkeley, California site manufacture clinical supplies of a second Wnt inhibitor developed as part of the firms’ partnership. Phase I trials are expected to start in 2012. 

OncoMed and Bayer teamed up in June 2010 for a strategic alliance focused on exploiting OncoMed’s human cancer stem cell models to develop antibody and protein therapeutics that target the Wnt pathway. Bayer has an option to license resulting biologics at any point through to the completion of Phase I studies. The first candidate to emerge from the program is an antibody therapeutic, OMP-18R5, which is expected to start in clinical development later this year. 

OncoMed already has two anticancer candidates in Phase I development. OMP-21M18 and OMP-59R5 both target the Notch signaling pathway and are being developed through the firm’s alliance with GlaxoSmithKline.

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