AstraZeneca has reportedly tanked a deal that would have taken high-profile rare disease company Sobi private over fears its respiratory drugs would fall into the hands of rivals.
The Big Pharma withheld its 8% stake in Sobi after a $7.6 billion offer from Advent International and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund closed in September, Bloomberg reported early Friday morning, effectively blocking the buyout. Sobi, also known as Swedish Orphan Biovitrum, possessed certain assets AstraZeneca itself was interested in acquiring, the report said.
Unlock this story instantly and join 124,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it’s free.
While oncology researchers have long pursued the potential of cellular immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, it was unclear whether these therapies would ever reach patients due to the complexity of manufacturing and costs of development. Fortunately, the recent successful development and regulatory approval of chimeric antigen receptor-engineered T (CAR-T) cells have demonstrated the significant benefit of these therapies to patients.
Richard Pazdur (via AACR)
Outside of Covid-19, 2021 has been the year of the accelerated approval.
Beginning last spring, FDA openly challenged six ‘dangling’ accelerated approvals (hadn’t confirmed their clinical benefit yet), three of which were later pulled by the companies.
Then in June, FDA pulled out the accelerated approval pathway, seemingly out of nowhere, to sign off on Biogen’s controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm. It hadn’t even been mentioned at the drug’s adcomm.
Novartis is plopping down $150 million in cash to pick up an experimental Parkinson’s drug and grab an option to another, a move that puts it on an increasingly popular path in the field’s search for disease-modifying therapies.
Belgium’s UCB is its partner of choice, supplying two small molecule alpha-synuclein misfolding inhibitors in a deal that can add up to nearly $1.5 billion.
Out of the pair, UCB0599 is already in Phase II trials, making Novartis confident enough to pull the trigger on co-development and commercialization, including to foot half of the R&D bill. The pharma giant will make a decision on UCB7853 once UCB wraps the ongoing Phase I program.
Unlock this story instantly and join 124,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it’s free.
Merck’s new antiviral molnupiravir (Quality Stock Arts / Shutterstock)
After South African scientists reported a new Covid-19 variant — dubbed Omicron by the WHO — scientists became concerned about how effective vaccines and monoclonal antibodies might be against it, which has more than 30 mutations in the spike protein.
‘I think it is super worrisome,’ Dartmouth professor and Adagio co-founder and CEO Tillman Gerngross told Endpoints News this weekend. Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel echoed similar concerns, telling the Financial Times that experts warned him, ‘This is not going to be good.’
Unlock this story instantly and join 124,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it’s free.
Joseph Arron is sometimes referred to as the black sheep of his family. While everyone else is a professional musician, he was always more interested in science.
‘I played music, but I was never that keen on pursuing that as a career,’ Arron says, adding that his dad played in orchestras, his mom was the director of Carnegie Hall, and his brother is a professional cellist.
Arron is a maestro in a different kind of field — and now, genetic data will be the music to his ears as he leaves a 15-year career at Genentech to become 23andMe’s new CSO.
When GlaxoSmithKline trumpeted its return to neuroscience with a $700 million upfront deal with Alector this summer, it touted its early investments in functional genomics as a key guidepost for that deal. Now, the drug giant has partnered up with Oxford to hopefully add jet fuel to its hunt for breakthroughs in the brain.
GSK and Oxford have kickstarted a five-year collaboration aimed at spurring R&D breakthroughs across a range of hard-to-treat diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s through the use of genomic testing and machine learning, the partners said Wednesday.
Unlock this story instantly and join 124,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it’s free.
On the hunt for a better AAV capsid for gene therapy, Eric Kelsic’s Dyno Therapeutics has set itself apart with its focus on machine learning to help speed discovery. Now, Japanese drugmaker Astellas — fresh off a slate of gene therapy burns — is taking a bet on Dyno as it looks to the future.
Astellas and Dyno will work together as part of an R&D pact to develop next-gen AAV vectors for gene therapy using Dyno’s CapsidMap platform directed at skeletal and cardiac muscle, the companies said Wednesday. Under the terms of the deal, Dyno will design AAV capsids for gene therapy, while Astellas will be responsible for conducting preclinical, clinical and commercialization activities for gene therapy product candidates using the capsids.
Common performs onstage, December 2020 (Getty Images)
Healthcare screenings and clinical trial enrollment were battered by the pandemic. But the well-known celebrity-backed Stand Up To Cancer non-profit, along with pharma and advocacy partners, has been working to reverse that and make up lost ground, by stepping up awareness campaigns.
Twelve campaigns launched in 2020 and another five in 2021 amplify the need for cancer screening and care, especially for underserved communities. While pharma companies have long been donors to the cancer research group, Covid brought new support — and increased awareness efforts.
Unlock this story instantly and join 124,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it’s free.
The former CFO of Immunomedics, who helped steer the company to its $21 billion buyout by Gilead last year, has been charged with insider trading, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Usama Malik tipped off his then-girlfriend and four others that a Phase III study for Trodelvy would be stopped early four days before Immunomedics publicly announced the result in April 2020, DoJ alleged in its complaint. The individuals then purchased Immunomedics shares, selling them after the news broke and Immunomedics’ stock price doubled.
Unlock this story instantly and join 124,500+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it’s free.
https://endpts.com/astrazeneca-nixes-8b-sobi-buyout-over-fears-a-former-drug-would-be-sold-to-rivals-report/
