DanDrit Biotech USA (DDRT) said today it has agreed to acquire orphan cancer drug developer OncoSynergy for an undisclosed price in a deal that broadens the buyer’s oncology pipeline.

The combined company will take the name of OncoSynergy, which is developing a new class of oncology drug candidates with resistance mechanism inhibitors (RMIs). The new class is designed to  target simultaneously multiple hallmarks of cancer progression and show dramatic preclinical efficacy both as a monotherapy and in strategic combinations.

OncoSynergy’s pipeline is led by the anti-CD29 monoclonal antibody OS2966, an FDA-designated orphan drug indicated for glioblastoma and ovarian cancer. According to the company, a Phase I clinical trial for OS2966 is anticipated to begin next year.

OS2966 is also in development as an Ebola virus entry inhibitor with multiple additional potential mechanisms of action.

Based in San Francisco, privately held OncoSynergy is a spinout designed to commercialize platform drugs discovered at University of California, San Francisco and a synthetic small molecule invented by Nicolas Winssinger, Ph.D., of the University of Geneva and 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awardee Martin Karplus, Ph.D., emeritus professor at Harvard University, while they were at the University of Strasbourg.

OncoSynergy co-founder and CEO Shawn Carbonell, MD, Ph.D., will become CSO, and Anne-Marie Carbonell, M.D., CMO of the combined company, which will also be based in San Francisco. DDRT is now based in New York.

“We believe the acquisition of OncoSynergy adds significant value through its R&D strengths and will advance both companies' clinical programs,” DDRT CEO Eric Leire said in a statement.

The acquisition of OncoSynergy is an asset purchase agreement. The purchase price for the assets at closing is 50% of the fully diluted share capital of DanDrit, including any additional shares that may be issued to the parties for any additional equity provided prior to closing.

Undisclosed shareholders connected with the parties agreed to provide an equity injection of $3 million each, while each party's funding obligation is reduced by the equity injection already contributed by that party since November 1, 2015, until the closing.

The deal is subject to conditions that include approval by DDRT shareholders.

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