Meanwhile in Big Pharma land....deals still being done:-Amgen is...

Meanwhile in Big Pharma land....deals still being done:-
Amgen is making a long-awaited move on the M&A side, buying South San Francisco-based Five Prime $FPRX for close to $2 billion and adding a slate of new cancer drugs to the pipeline.
Amgen is paying $38 a share, putting the deal value at $1.9 billion.
The stock closed at $21.26 last night, giving investors a 78% premium.
The jewel in the crown of this deal is bemarituzumab, which Amgen describes as a first-in-class, Phase III-ready anti-FGFR2b antibody. Amgen was drawn to the bargaining table by Five Prime’s mid-stage data on gastric cancer, satisfied by PFS and OS data helping to validate FGFR2b as a target. Amgen researchers will now expand on the R&D program in other epithelial cancers, including lung, breast, ovarian and other cancers.

Amgen could have had Five Prime for a lot less last October, before a big rally in the stock in November after the smaller biotech produced positive results for the Phase II study. At the time, the stock was trading for around $5 after drifting steadily lower over 3 long years. Then its fortunes changed.

For progression-free survival, as Max Gelman reported last fall, outcomes improved from 7.4 months to 9.5 months, hitting a p-value of 0.073, while overall response rate improved by 13.1%, good for a p-value of 0.106. But in overall survival, which CEO Tom Civik later said in a call to investors would likely be the primary for a potential Phase III trial, Five Prime saw a median of 12.9 months in the control arm and did not reach a figure in the treatment arm. That hit a p-value of 0.027.

Think AIPAC and median OS still not yet reached....OS would likely be the primary in a P3 AIPAC trial.