The French pharma is getting Black Diamond’s de-prioritized molecule for non-small cell lung cancers with specific mutations whose development had been paused to save money.
Black Diamond has got itself a longer runway, securing a licensing deal with French pharmaceutical group Servier for an early-stage small molecule cancer drug Black Diamond backburnered last year.
The deal, announced Wednesday, has Servier paying the Boston-based Black Diamond $70 million upfront to license BDTX-4933, with an additional $710 million in development and sales milestones, plus royalties. Servier will be responsible for the development and commercialization of BDTX-4933, a Phase I asset targeting solid tumors with RAS and RAF mutations.
Black Diamond’s stock jumped more than 40% in pre-market trading Wednesday, following the news.
Black Diamond deprioritized development of BDTX-4933 in October 2024. That move came with an unspecified number of staff layoffs, with the shake-up intended to extend the company’s cash runway into the second quarter of 2026. At the time, the company announced its intentions to seek a partner to develop BDTX-4933, an endeavor in which it seems to have succeeded.
“We moved [BDTX-4933] into the clinic and started to see some initial data,” Black Diamond CEO Mark Velleca told BioSpace. “That piqued the interest of a few potential partners, but it was clear that Servier was going to cherish this asset.”
With BDTX-4933 on the shelf, Black Diamond focused its efforts and resources on BDTX-1535, an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor currently in Phase II trials for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) carrying EGFR mutations. In September 2024, the company announced preliminary data from the Phase II trial, touting “encouraging clinical responses” and “encouraging durability.” Black Diamond initially planned to announce data from that trial in Q1 2025, but the Servier agreement changes that timeframe, Velleca said.
“One thing we’ve learned in biopharma is that if you’re going to release data, make sure it’s bulletproof,” he told BioSpace. “As much as we wanted to get [BDTX-1535’s] data out there this year, if we can wait another 6-9 months, I think that’s better.”
All of the Servier money will go toward developing BDTX-1535, according to Velleca, who added that the deal pushes Black Diamond’s runway out another year.
Servier isn’t a stranger to using acquisitions to beef up its cancer pipeline, spending $2 billion to buy Agios’ entire oncology division in December 2020, months after entering into a partnership with Precision Biosciences on CAR Ts for blood cancers and solid tumors.
The French group’s cancer pipeline is already quite active, with clinical trials in progress for gliomas, bile duct cancer and a handful of different antibodies targeting NSCLC.
