Drug development company Novellus said on Wednesday that it has signed an exclusive worldwide licence agreement with Plexxikon, part of the Daiichi Sankyo Group (TYO:4568), for its clinical-stage oncology drug candidate PLX8394 targeting the BRAF protein.

PLX8394 has reportedly demonstrated favourable preliminary clinical data in a biomarker-driven Phase 1/2 study in patients with advanced, unresectable solid tumours. The study will now enrol more patients.

Plexxikon has granted Novellus rights to research, develop, manufacture and exclusively commercialise PLX8394 worldwide. Plexxikon will receive an undisclosed upfront payment, as well as additional developmental milestones and royalty payments.

PLX8394 is an investigational, oral, small molecule inhibitor of the oncogenic BRAF serine/threonine-protein kinase, which accelerates BRAF mutant cancers by activating the RAS/MAPK pathway. PLX8394 is a next-generation BRAF inhibitor that blocks signalling from both monomeric BRAFV600 and dimeric BRAFnon-V600 mutant proteins.