Bayer and Onyx Pharmaceuticals presented data on their own cancer drug, sorafenib, and found that the drugs extended life, compared with a placebo.
No drug has ever extended survival in very sick liver cancer patients, but Bayer and Onyx Pharmaceuticals will present data showing that their Nexavar pill does just that.
Now all of a sudden several different regimens have moved into late-stage trials after showing early promise, including Pfizer's SU11248 and a drug being jointly developed by Germany's Bayer and Onyx Pharmaceuticals in California.
The new company would be called Bayer-Schering Pharmaceuticals.
This could cut into sales for Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Bayer 's Nexavar drug for kidney cancer.
Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Bayer are developing a drug, sorafinib, for kidney cancer.
The drug has been closely watched both by investors in Pfizer and those in Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Bayer, which submitted their own similar medicine, sorafenib, for kidney cancer last month.
Bayer and biotech Onyx Pharmaceuticals announced a devastatingly disappointing result for their cancer pill Nexavar: They stopped a study of the drug in non-small cell lung cancer early because there was no chance it would reach its main goal of proving Nexavar extends patients' lives in that disease.
It has already licensed a leukotriene-blocking drug from the German pharmaceuticals firm Bayer (nyse: BAY - news - people ) and is working with renowned Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Eric Topol to bring the drug into clinical trials for heart disease (see " New Drugs To Watch").
Purchasing CropScience could help Bayer move away from the pharmaceuticals business.
It seems that Bayer is finally serious about selling its pharmaceuticals business.
"I don't care about the future liabilities, as long as Bayer gets a good price for its pharmaceuticals business, " says Thomas Shrager, the international fund manager at Tweedy, Browne in New York and one of the most vocal critics of Bayer's management among shareholders.
They were tears of joy: A study had found that Nexavar, a drug Bayer invented and developed with tiny biotech Onyx Pharmaceuticals of Emeryville, Calif.
Bayer's partnership with gene-hunter Millennium Pharmaceuticals begins to bear fruit.
Having invented aspirin, the world's best-known medicine, Bayer is determined, unlike Hoechst, to hang on to its pharmaceuticals business.
No drug has ever extended survival in very sick liver cancer patients, but Bayer (nyse: BAY - news - people ) and Onyx Pharmaceuticals will present data showing that their Nexavar pill does just that.
Conscious that it needed a drug pipeline to survive as a drug company, Bayer has made deals with cutting-edge firms like genomics leaders Curagen and Millennium Pharmaceuticals , as well Avigen , a gene therapy company, and Lion Bioscience , a biotech computing company.
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