Xanthus Sold for $52M

Erik Mellgren5/16/08

British drug company Antisoma reported today that it has picked up Cambridge, MA-based Xanthus Pharmaceuticals for about $52 million in shares. Xanthus focuses on therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases and has five drugs in clinical development. One of them is an oral cancer drug that is already marketed outside the U.S. by Bayer-Schering Pharma.

Erik Mellgren is a Swedish journalist who worked for Xconomy Boston in 2008 as part of the Stanford Innovation Journalism Fellowship program. His real job is with Ny Teknik, a leading technology and innovation magazine in Sweden, but he loved seeing the Red Sox at Fenway. Follow @