Morphosys CEO says MOR202 drug candidate still promising: newspaper

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Morphosys still believes that its MOR202 compound has a good chance of becoming a success after U.S. drugmaker Celgene scrapped cooperation on the drug candidate, the German company's chief executive told a newspaper. "We are still testing the MOR202 compound in the first clinical phase and still see it as promising," German weekly Welt am Sonntag quoted Simon Moroney as saying in an interview published on Sunday. The compound is viewed as a possible treatment for multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer. Morphosys and Celgene agreed last month to end their cooperation on MOR202, pushing Morphosys' stock down more than 20 percent. "Investors' initial reaction is always the same. First everyone thinks that the project is dead if a cooperation fails," Moroney said. He said Morphosys would make further decisions on the future of MOR202 once a Phase 1/2a trial of the compound was completed, adding he expected results of the trial to be available by the end of the year. (Reporting by Maria Sheahan; editing by Andrew Roche)