Tom Plitz (L) and Arthur Roach, Chord Therapeutics CEO and founder
About a year after Geneva-based Chord Therapeutics emerged from stealth to see if it could repurpose an old chemotherapy agent for rare diseases, Merck KGaA is swooping in with a buyout.
While the companies are keeping mum about the financial terms of the deal, Merck KGaA is adding Chord’s lead candidate to its neurology pipeline — a small molecule oral version of the chemotherapy drug cladribine dubbed CRD1.
Upon announcing the news on Monday morning, the company’s stock $MKKGY was up about 1.74%.
This wouldn’t be the first time researchers at the German pharma company have worked with cladribine. Back in 2019, Merck KGaA (known as the EMD group in the US and Canada) got its own cladribine tablets approved by the FDA for multiple sclerosis. While cladribine (which has been around since the 1990s) is normally used to treat certain types of leukemia, Merck KGaA’s Mavenclad showed a 58% relative reduction in annualized relapse rate in MS patients compared to placebo (p<0.001).
Since launching with $16 million from Omega Funds last October, Chord’s been looking to build programs around ‘well-understood active substances with a history of clinical testing and use in human patients.’
For the last 14 months, the biotech’s been working on turning CRD1 into treatments for a neuromuscular condition called generalized myasthenia gravis, and an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system called neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD).
‘We often hear, ‘What do you want with these old drugs? You know, isn’t there something better, something modern?” Chord CEO Tom Plitz told Endpoints News. ‘(Cladribine) is not one of these chemotherapeutics that kind of kills everything which comes along. It’s very specific for lymphocytes and this is linked to the mode of action.’
The drug works by reducing the number of B and T lymphocytes in the body, and Chord has already established early proof-of-concept in both indications, according to Plitz. While he declined to give too much away on potential timelines going forth, he said it’s Chord’s expectation that another proof-of-concept study won’t be necessary, and that researchers will be able to dive right into registrational studies.
‘It’s not all about all new and … first in class, first on target, first ever. There’s a lot of merits on building on known strength and I think that was something obviously Omega picked up on,’ Plitz said. ‘We still hope that obviously now, what we have built on will be successfully continued with Merck.’
CALQUENCE is a registered trademark of the AstraZeneca group of companies.
At the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, blood cancer researchers from around the world gathered virtually to discuss the progress that has been made in the field of hematology. Over the past decade, that progress has been tremendous. We’ve seen not only breakthrough approaches to care, but also significant improvement upon existing novel treatments and exploring combinations within those medicines.1 These advances have transformed expectations of what a blood cancer diagnosis now means for patients. While we’ve come a long way, I believe the most exciting scientific discovery is yet to come, and that future advances will truly transform patient care.
Michel Vounatsos, Biogen CEO (Credit: World Economic Forum/Valeriano Di Domenico)
In a surprise move, Biogen announced Monday that it will cut the price of its controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm in half, slashing the cost from $56,000 to $28,000.
The sudden discount marks a sudden turnaround for the big biotech as it struggles to turn around a drug whose stuck-in-the-mud sales and political ramifications have sent the company into turmoil and triggered the ousting of its longtime chief scientist. Biogen’s leadership had resisted calls since June to reduce the price of the drug.
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Right as the new Omicron variant is poised to increase rapidly across the US, the federal government has effectively run out of the only monoclonal antibody treatment that works against it, and at least one major hospital system is now halting all mAb infusions.
Late last month, the federal government paused shipments of GlaxoSmithKline and Vir’s mAb treatment sotrovimab in order to conserve supplies of the only treatment that might work against the Omicron variant. Last week, however, HHS told Endpoints News that the move to hold back sotrovimab was unrelated to Omicron, and due to a surplus of Eli Lilly mAbs, which aren’t effective against Omicron.
One of Pfizer’s new vaccine TV commercials never mentions its vaccine brand Comirnaty. In fact, it doesn’t mention vaccines or Covid-19 at all and doesn’t show people wearing masks or social distancing. Yet it’s clear the ad is talking about the pharma’s Covid-19 vaccines.
The ad’s voiceover talks about the unremarkable moments and routines that matter, like getting a coffee refill at a diner or Sunday grocery shopping. The images shift from those everyday moments to a scientists and purple lidded glass vials spinning off a production line and being packed into freezers.
John Oyler, BeiGene CEO (Endpoints News, PharmCube)
Count Novartis in for the burgeoning TIGIT race.
After starting the year by plunking down $650 million upfront to license BeiGene’s PD-1 inhibitor — with positive Phase III data stacking up ever since — Novartis is returning to its biotech partner to pick up a Phase III TIGIT drug while entrusting it with marketing five of its approved cancer treatments in China.
Their goal, BeiGene CEO John Oyler suggests in an interview with Endpoints News, is nothing short of vaulting to a leadership position in the TIGIT space with the additional horsepower that Novartis brings.
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As the new year rapidly approaches, and gyms and health food stores across America prepare for a wave of people seeking weight loss, Novo Nordisk has announced that it does not expect to meet demand for Wegovy, its prescription injectable weight-loss medication for obesity, until the second half of 2022 in the US.
The shortage comes due to manufacturing issues at a contract manufacturer that was tasked with filling syringes for the pens. The news comes just days after Novo announced that it would invest roughly $2.58 billion to expand its manufacturing hub in Kalundborg, Denmark with three new facilities and the expansion of a fourth to keep up with the success of its diabetes and obesity med semaglutide, Wegovy and Rybelsus.
Tim Lu via TED Talks (TED Conferences)
Omid Farokhzad didn’t have to travel far to find a private biotech he wanted to take public with his $200 million blank-check company.
Senti Bio — the synthetic biology play launched and now helmed by MIT whiz Tim Lu — will be merging with Farokhzad’s Dynamics Special Purpose Corp., the companies announced Tuesday morning, in a deal set to deliver $296 million in gross proceeds.
Using a gene circuit technology platform out of Lu’s lab, Senti promises to program ‘sense-compute-respond’ capabilities into cell and gene therapies.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) at the Capitol on Friday, Dec. 17 (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Images)
Sen. Joe Manchin on Sunday derailed President Biden’s trillion-dollar spending package, effectively halting the Democrats’ best chance yet to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, among a bevy of other health-related provisions tacked onto the Build Back Better Act.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, stunned by Manchin’s announcement on Fox News, said in a statement: ‘Senator Manchin claims that this change of position is related to inflation, but the think tank he often cites on Build Back Better — the Penn Wharton Budget Institute — issued a report less than 48 hours ago that noted the Build Back Better Act will have virtually no impact on inflation in the short term, and, in the long run, the policies it includes will ease inflationary pressures.’
The AbbVie/Alvotech debacle on a Humira biosimilar has taken yet another turn — escalating tensions between the two biotechs.
The pharma giant filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission on Friday, trying to prevent Alvotech from selling a lower cost version of AbbVie’s Humira, an anti-TNF drug that treats rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and Crohn’s disease, among other ailments.
https://endpts.com/merck-kgaa-snatches-up-geneva-biotech-as-repurposed-chemotherapy-mission-strikes-a-chord/
