Deals
The big pharma is tapping into Muna’s MiND-MAP platform to gain extra validation for its own early-stage work in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative conditions.
The divestment decision comes years after it slimmed down amid challenges in the Japanese generic market.
The company is keeping up a flow of deals in oncology, opening up access to a range of new modalities and potential future combinations with two new tie-ups.
The Scrip Awards has been celebrating industry successes for 20 years now and the 2024 ceremony at the beautiful Raffles London at the OWO saw Novo Nordisk and Bill Burns taking home the top prizes.
Deal Snapshot: Genentech will pay $40m up front and in the near term, with milestone fees of up to $900m-plus, to use COUR’s tolerogenic nanoparticle treatments in an undisclosed autoimmune disease.
Coherus agreed to sell its biosimilar of Amgen’s Neulasta to Intas in a deal that will clear significant near-term debt and provide funds for a label-expansion strategy for its PD-1 agent Loqtorzi.
Takeda will pay $200m up front for rights to Phase II elritercept for anemia in patients with MDS and myelofibrosis, allowing Keros to extend its cash runway to 2028.
Deal Snapshot: Gilead will pay $20m up front to the German biotech to develop an antibody-drug conjugate with a topoisomerase-1 payload meant to address durability and safety challenges.
Presenting data or announcing a licensing transaction at an appropriately themed conference would normally be expected to be viewed favorably by investors. This is not always the case, however.
Novartis will also pay up to $1.9bn for milestones and share US profits on the Phase II RNA-splicing candidate. PTC is discussing potential accelerated approval with the US FDA.
The Carlyle-backed venture capital group is said to be working on a new fund to help finance up to eight late-stage clinical studies through potential partnerships with big pharma for a share of royalties. The move would be in keeping with its recent investment activities.
Plus deals involving Novartis with Vyriad, Ratio and Schrödinger; Pharmanovia/Lindis, Pulmatrix/Cullgen, Entero/Journey, Roche/Flare and AlloVir/Kalaris.
The Norwegian biotech is losing a big pharma partner and up to half of its staff, but remains confident about the prospects for its personalized cancer vaccine programs.
Hua Medicine’s HuaTangNing (dorzagliatin), the world’s first approved glucokinase activator, has apparently fallen short of restoring Bayer to its pre-2020 frontrunner position in China’s market for oral type 2 diabetes drugs, and the two companies' alliance is now set to be dissolved.
Plus deals involving Zai Lab/Pfizer, Laekna/Lilly, Takeda/Alloy, Lunit/AstraZeneca, VelaVigo/Avenzo, Biosion/Aclaris, HCW/WY Biotech, Celltrion/iQone and Kaken/Numab.
Deal Snapshot: The essential tremor space has not seen innovation in treatment for decades. Acadia believes Saniona's GABAA-α3 positive allosteric modulator could be the answer.
The SKYSCRAPER-01 trial’s failure to generate an overall survival benefit is the biggest blow yet to the TIGIT inhibitor class, but Roche looking to move on with its buyout of the CAR-T therapy company.
BioNTech and Biotheus’s recent acquisition deal and the current tough funding environment for Chinese biotechs may point to further potential transactions at attractive valuations. Bispecific antibodies and ADCs in oncology are possible targets for cross-border deals.
The San Diego-based firm had aggressively pursued Evotec, but the service provider based in Hamburg, Germany appeared uninterested in a buyout.
Billion dollar-plus global deal with Japanese partner gives Kura's lead asset development impetus while adding to Kyowa Kirin's ambitions in hematological malignancies.