According to EU-Startups, U.S. biotech giant Amgen has acquired the Oxford-based discovery company Dark Blue Therapeutics in a transaction that could be worth up to €718 million, or about $840 million. The deal, announced recently, is centered on Dark Blue’s lead candidate, DBT 3757, a first-in-class therapy for acute leukemias that’s currently in IND-enabling studies. The company, founded in 2020 and backed by investors Oxford Science Enterprises, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Evotec, leverages cancer biology insights from Oxford University. Amgen plans to integrate Dark Blue into its research organization to accelerate the program. Dark Blue’s CEO, Alastair MacKinnon, stated that Amgen’s resources are needed to bring the therapy to patients who urgently need new options, particularly those who don’t respond to current standard treatments.
The Science Behind The Deal
So what exactly is Amgen buying for that kind of money? It’s banking on a novel approach called targeted protein degradation. Basically, DBT 3757 is designed to go after specific proteins, MLLT1 and MLLT3, that are critical for the survival of certain leukemia cells. The pitch is that it could be a powerful single-agent therapy with a good safety profile—which is a big deal. Here’s the thing: if the safety is truly favourable, it doesn’t just become a last-resort drug. It could become a foundational “backbone” for combination treatments much earlier in a patient’s course of therapy. That’s the holy grail in oncology: finding a potent drug that plays well with others.
Why This Acquisition Makes Sense For Amgen
Look, Amgen isn’t just throwing cash at a cool science project. This is a strategic fit. The company already has a growing focus on targeted protein degradation, so adding Dark Blue’s program expands that expertise in a very specific area—leukemia. Jay Bradner, Amgen’s R&D head, pointed out the “adjacency” to their existing cancer biology work. That’s corporatespeak for “this fits perfectly with stuff we already know how to do.” Acquiring a biotech at this stage, pre-IND, is a calculated risk. They’re paying a premium for potential, betting their development muscle can get this compound to patients faster and more effectively than a small startup could on its own. It’s cheaper than buying a late-stage asset, but it requires real confidence in the underlying biology.
The Broader Picture And Challenges Ahead
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The candidate is still in IND-enabling studies. That means it hasn’t even been given the green light to start human trials yet. The path from promising pre-clinical data to an approved drug is littered with failures. Amgen is clearly convinced by the data package, but the real test is still to come. The acquisition also highlights a continuing trend: big pharma is hungry for innovation it can’t easily cook up in-house and is willing to shop in the academic spin-out arena. Dark Blue’s roots in Oxford University science made it a ripe target. Now, the pressure is on Amgen’s research org to deliver. Can they translate those Oxford insights into a real medicine? The nearly three-quarter-billion-euro bet says they think so.
