PharmaMar amends licensing deal for Yondelis

Spanish drugmaker PharmaMar (MC: PHM) has entered into a new licensing agreement with Janssen Products, a unit of US health care giant Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), for cancer drug Yondelis (trabectedin), which replaces the 2001 Licensing Agreement entered into by both parties.

Coming just days after the US Food and Drug Administration accepted the company’s lurbinectedin monotherapy as a treatment second-line small cell lung cancer (SCLC) for accelerated approval, when the stock leapt as much as 29%, the latest news pushed PharmaMar’s shares up 3.32% to 2.12 euros by early afternoon trading today.

PharmaMar’s sales of Yondelisin the first six months of this year were 36.3 million euros ($40.3 million), compared to 38.8 million euros in the first half of the previous year.