Karyopharm pushes off debt payment; Amgen eyes broader Imdelltra use

An article from News roundup Karyopharm pushes off debt payment; Amgen eyes broader Imdelltra use Karyopharm bought an extra month to negotiate with creditors or pursue a deal. Elsewhere, BridgeBio Pharma’s oncology spinout shook up its development plans. Published Sept.

11, 2026 By BioPharma Dive staff Share Copy link Email LinkedIn X/Twitter Facebook Print License Add us on Google Today, a brief rundown of news involving Karyopharm Therapeutics and Amgen, as well as updates from BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics, Evommune, Encoded Therapeutics and Schrödinger that you may have missed. Cash-strapped Karyopharm Therapeutics has reached a deal with creditors that’ll give the company extra time to make a $15.8 million debt payment that came due on Thursday. According to a regulatory filing, a group of lenders, noteholders and royalty investors will hold off on taking action through Oct.

15, giving Karyopharm a little over a month to negotiate, pursue strategic alternatives or find additional financing. Karyopharm agreed to pay a $20 million fee in the form of newly issued convertible stock as part of the deal. Though lengthier financial relief would’ve been “most ideal,” the agreement “at least buys the company time,” wrote RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams.

Karyopharm is waiting to see whether U.S. regulators will accept an approval application for its multiple myeloma drug Xpovio in myelofibrosis. — Ben Fidler A combination of Amgen’s Imdelltra and AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi helped people with first-line, extensive small-cell lung cancer live longer than Imfinzi alone in a Phase 3 trial.

Amgen didn’t provide specifics in a Tuesday statement, but said a trial monitoring committee detected a survival benefit among Imdelltra-Imfinzi recipients at an early data check, along with statistically significant improvements on measures of tumor progression and drug responses. Imdelltra is currently approved as a single agent for people whose disease gets worse following chemotherapy, and generated about $627 million in sales last year. Approval in the first-line setting could yield “a significant expansion” of the drug’s sales potential, wrote William Blair analyst Myles Minter.

Amgen will discuss the data with regulators. — Jonathan Gardner Evommune’s experimental drug EVO756 missed the main goal of a Phase 2 trial in atopic dermatitis, failing to significantly reduce the size or severity of skin lesions in atopic dermatitis patients when compared to a placebo, the company said Tuesday. The setback marks the second recent negative readout for EVO756, which fell short in a trial in chronic spontaneous urticaria in June.

Evommune has lost more than 40% of its market value since going public last year. EVO756’s struggles have led investors to shift their attention to another therapy, EVO301, that’s also in testing for atopic dermatitis, wrote Oppenheimer analyst Kostas Biliouris. That treatment “looks interesting,” as it might help people who don’t respond to Dupixent, he wrote.

— Jonathan Gardner Shares of BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics have fallen by more than one-third since the company announced Tuesday it’s scaling back development for two KRAS-blocking drugs. BridgeBio dropped plans to test one drug, BBO-8520, in the first-line non-small cell lung cancer. It also deprioritized a breast cancer trial for a second therapy known as BBO-10203.

BridgeBio made those decisions to focus resources on studies with “the highest probability of success and greatest potential benefit for patients,” among them a combination trial in second-line lung cancer. While those moves were “prudent” financially, they nonetheless eliminated a “large potential opportunity,” wrote Leerink Partners analyst Andrew Berens. — Jonathan Gardner Encoded Therapeutics has raised a $275 million Series F round to advance a pair of gene therapies for neurological disorders, the company said.

Encoded’s most advanced candidate, a gene therapy dubbed ETX-101, showed in an early-stage trial the potential to lower the frequency of seizures and improve cognition in children with the rare genetic condition Dravet syndrome. A second program called ETX-301 is in preclinical development for chronic pain from post-amputation neuromas, a thickening of nerve tissue that occurs after limb loss. Led by investors including GV, Arch Venture Partners and RTW Investments, the funding will also help Encoded boost its manufacturing capabilities.

— Gwendolyn Wu A biotech startup launched Wednesday by Schrödinger, RA Capital and New Enterprise Associates is setting out with a goal to develop drugs for inflammatory diseases. Called Tectora Therapeutics, the young company is starting up with $55 million to take forward two Schrödinger small molecules, called SDGR-4594 and SDGR-8139, into human testing. Multiple startups linked to Schrödinger have signed large deals with drugmakers, among them Nimbus Therapeutics, Morphic Therapeutic and Ajax Therapeutics.

Nimbus sold some drug programs to Gilead Sciences and Takeda, while Morphic and Ajax were acquired by Eli Lilly. — Gwendolyn Wu Add us on Google Share Copy link Email LinkedIn X/Twitter Facebook Print License Filed Under: Biotech