The winding terrain of the longstanding collaboration between GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. took another turn on 27 August, as the pharma elected to opt in on a pair of antisense candidates for hepatitis B, paying the biotech $25m in licensing fees with the potential for milestone payments sales royalties.
Overall, it was only the second licensing deal around HBV assets announced in 2019, according to Strategic Transactions. In an...