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July 22, 2021

Arvinas gets $1B in breast cancer drug deal with Pfizer

PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED John Houston
By Natalie Missakian

New Haven’s Arvinas will get help from Pfizer to develop and commercialize its drug for advanced breast cancer, in a deal potentially worth $2.4 billion.

Pfizer, the maker of breast cancer drug Ibrance, will pay Arvinas $650 million up front, and up to $1.4 billion more based on milestones, as part of the global collaboration deal for Arvinas’ drug ARV-471, the two companies said in a joint statement Thursday morning.

In a separate deal, Pfizer, which has a large Connecticut presence, has also agreed to an immediate $350 million equity investment in Arvinas, giving the pharma giant a 7% ownership stake, according to the announcement.

ARV-471 is part of a new class of protein-degrader drugs, pioneered by Yale scientist and Arvinas founder Craig Crews, that harness the body’s own cellular trash-disposal system to remove proteins that cause disease. It targets the estrogen receptor, a primary driver of hormone-positive breast cancer.

Under the agreement, Arvinas and Pfizer will equally share development and commercialization costs for the drug, as well as any profits, the companies said.

The drug has shown promise in early human testing for patients with ER+/HER2- breast cancer that is locally advanced or has spread to other organs. 

Arvinas and Pfizer expect to launch Phase 3 clinical trials on the drug in 2022, including a trial combining it with Pfizer’s Ibrance. They're also planning two more early-stage trials this year -- one combining the drug with the chemotherapy everolimus, and another testing it in the neoadjuvant setting, meaning it's given to patients to shrink tumors before surgery. 

The partnership announced Thursday is Arvinas’ second multi-million-dollar deal with Pfizer. In 2018, the two companies teamed up on a research and licensing deal potentially worth $830 million to discover and develop drugs using the biotech’s protein-degrader technology, known as PROTAC (short for proteolysis-targeting chimeras).

In a statement, Arvinas CEO John Houston said the latest deal “combines our leadership in targeted protein degradation with Pfizer’s global capabilities and deep expertise in breast cancer” and “should significantly enhance and accelerate the development and potential commercialization of ARV-471.”

Jeff Settleman, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer for oncology R&D, said in a statement that ARV-471 would be the first PROTAC for breast cancer and has the potential to be a new “hormonal therapy backbone for [hormone-receptor positive] breast cancer.” 

“This partnership complements Pfizer’s robust research activities in breast cancer, including our multiple next-generation CDK inhibitors currently in early clinical development,” he said. 

Arvinas, now based in Science Park, will be the anchor tenant in a new bioscience tower under construction at 101 College Street.

Contact Natalie Missakian at news@newhavenbiz.com

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