Avalon strikes $200M deal with Merck for cancer drug - Washington Business Journal:

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The two companies will work togethee to identify drug compounds that can block an undisclosed proteinm linked to various formsof cancer. Avalon is using its screeninyg technology to narrow down thousands of potential compoundws into a few families that Merck will then pay to test in preclinical andclinical studies. Althoug h the deal makes Merck responsibld for all regulatory and commercialization costsd of taking such a drugto market, Avalonn would receive payments for hitting certain milestones and royaltiew from sales that could totall more than $200 million.
The deal doesn't yield any upfrontr payments for Germantown-based Avalon, but the company thinksd it could deposit its first milestone paymenft around this timenext year. "For an earlyy stage company like us, this is a very large says Ken Carter, president and CEO of Avalon. "It'sw very validating in terms of the perceiver value ofthe company." It's the largest among similafr recent partnerships with large r companies, previously and MedImmune, that has used this AvalonRx And it's not expected to be Avalon'x last.
"We actually have a numbefr of discussions goingon now," Carter "We will very likely see in the next year and a half one additional deal like this." But the AvalonRc screening technology is a side item to the company'sa core cancer drug development. Recently closinfg on $10 million in private placement Avalon plans to starty dosing pancreatic cancer patientsby mid-year in the secondr phase of trials for its lead anticancer By the end of the it expects to launch two more phaswe II trials on treatments for leukemia and The drug pipeline "resonates with our investors and clearlh is our focus," Carter says.
"Every time we do one of thesee partnerships, it's always with careful consideration that it woulsd notbe distracting."