Merrimack was the Cambridge biotech behind liposomal irinotecan (Onivyde), approved for pancreatic cancer in 2015 and later sold to Ipsen; its antibody programmes failed and the company wound down.
Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, founded in 2000 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, developed MM-398, a liposomal formulation of irinotecan approved in 2015 as Onivyde for metastatic pancreatic cancer after gemcitabine (the NAPOLI-1 trial), which it sold to Ipsen in 2017. Its systems-biology antibody programmes, including the HER3 antibody seribantumab, did not reach approval, and the company later returned remaining assets to shareholders. Its phase 3 trials remain on ClinicalTrials.gov under Merrimack as lead sponsor.
Irinotecan is a topoisomerase-blocking chemotherapy central to bowel and pancreatic cancer regimens (FOLFIRI, FOLFIRINOX, NALIRIFOX) and to salvage therapy in childhood sarcomas; it carries the same warhead as the deruxtecan ADC payloads.
Shares Pivotal (registrational) trial, Clinical trial, Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
Shares Pivotal (registrational) trial, Clinical trial, Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.