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news.Roche has terminated its epothilone development and commercialization collaboration with Kosan, which will reacquire the rights to the program.
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Kosan said that it does not expect the termination of its collaborative research, development and commercialization agreement with Roche to impact its financial guidance for 2007 due to transition period funding. The Californian biotech said that it plans to take the drug, KOS-1584, into Phase II trials.
Robert Johnson, Jr. Kosan’s president and CEO, said: “Based on our discussions with Roche, we believe that the ending of our epothilone collaboration has been driven by a re-prioritization within Roche’s R&D group rather than the value of our epothilone program. Our control of the program permits us to determine the optimal strategy for advancing epothilone product (KOS-1584) into larger-scale clinical trials, potentially with a new collaborative partner, which we plan to actively seek.”
Dan Zabrowski, global head of Roche pharma partnering, said: “Roche believes that KOS-1584 is worthy to proceed into Phase II clinical trials, and that the Roche-Kosan collaboration has been highly productive. We believe that Kosan is in the best position to exploit the therapeutic and commercial potential of KOS-1584. Kosan has been an excellent development partner, and we have appreciated the opportunity to be supportive of their progress.”