Over the past couple of years, the top execs at Roche and Genentech have inked a flurry of deals aligning the global pair with several of the new players that have emerged in the booming AI and machine learning world. That strategy was supercharged in the spring of 2020 by their decision to recruit Aviv Regev out of the computational world she occupied at the Broad. And today they’re taking that computational approach in R&D to a whole new level.
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KEY POINTS
Patients prefer oral dosing, but swallowing tablets can be a challenge for many patients. The Zydis® orally disintegrating tablet (ODT) platform addresses challenges associated with oral dosing, expanding benefits for patients and options for healthcare providers. A strong growth trajectory is expected for ODTs given therapeutic innovation and continued technology development.
Many patients prefer conventional tablets for the administration of medications, but some geriatric and pediatric patients and those with altered mental status and physical impairments find swallowing tablets to be difficult. Orally disintegrating tablets (ODTs), which dissolve completely without chewing or sucking, offer a patient-friendly dosage form for the administration of small-molecule drugs, peptides and proteins. With the potential for multiple sites of drug absorption, often faster onset action for the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), and potentially greater bioavailability, ODTs are an attractive option for drug developers considering first-to-market formulations or product line extensions of existing drugs with compatible API. In this report, we look at how innovation in the industry-leading Zydis ODT platform is expanding oral formulation options and bringing benefits to patients.
Please signup to continue — it’s fast and free. This article is sponsored by Catalent and produced by Endpoints Studio. Geoffrey Porges (SVB Leerink)
All through this year you could practically feel the frustration of the biotech investor class as M&A activity continued to drag behind expectations — or desires. Buyouts of public companies provide the essential juice for keeping stocks lively, and there’s been a notable lack of juice in 2021.
So is all that about to change, big time?
SVB Leerink’s Geoffrey Porges, a longtime student of biotech M&A, thinks so. In a lengthy analysis he put out last week, Porges totted up the cash flow of the major pharmas and determined that there was a good long list of industry buyers who would have around a half trillion dollars of cash to play with in 2022. Leverage that up with added debt and you could get that deal cache to $1.6 trillion.
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Even though many biopharma leaders have come together in recent years to address its gender gap, the consensus is clear: We still have a long way to go.
Companies this year were 2.5 times more likely than last year to have a diversity and inclusion program in place, according to a recent BIO survey, but women are still largely absent from executive roles. Getting women to enter the industry isn’t the problem — studies show that they represent just under half of all biotech employees around the world. But climbing through the ranks can be challenging, as women still report facing stereotypes, and, unfortunately, harassment.
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AstraZeneca is plucking another antisense drug out of Ionis’ prolific pipeline.
Paying $200 million in cash, AstraZeneca has inked a development and commercialization deal around eplontersen — the Phase III TTR amyloidosis drug formerly known as IONIS-TTR-LRX. On top of the upfront and $485 million worth of conditional payments to follow regulatory approvals, the pharma giant is promising $2.9 billion in sales-related milestones should the drug reach megablockbuster status, plus royalties.
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Richard Lerner (Scott Audette/AP Images)
Richard Lerner, the esteemed biochemist who pioneered a new way to develop monoclonal antibodies and led Scripps Research Institute to prominence, has passed away.
A spokesperson for Scripps told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Lerner died of cancer in his La Jolla home. He was 83 years old.
Among other things, Lerner’s lab was known for devising a new technique for creating antibodies — deployed as cancer treatments as well as in immunology and disease research — one that the New York Times called a ‘major advance in biotechnology.’ It led to companies making mAbs a thousand times faster, more accurately, at a lower cost. That foundational research cemented the discovery of Humira, which went on to become the world’s best-selling treatment.
Róbert Wessman, Alvotech chairman and founder
As Icelandic billionaire Róbert Wessman tries to take down AbbVie’s megablockbuster Humira in court, he’s also taking his biosimilar upstart to the big time with a $2.25 billion SPAC merger, Nasdaq launch and $450 million raise announced early Tuesday.
While Wessman’s Alvotech has not won FDA approval for any of its biosimilar candidates yet, the company was the first to file with the FDA for approval of its high-concentration Humira biosimilar and to have successfully conducted a switching study in support of a highly-coveted interchangeability designation. But other companies like Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim and Pfizer have since caught up ahead of the launches of their own Humira biosimilar competitors in 2023.
Gary Glick, Odyssey Therapeutics founder
Gary Glick is back at it again, founding yet another biotech company. And by the sheer size of its first raise, this may be the biggest one yet.
Glick has assembled what he calls an all-star roster and recruited one of the biggest healthcare investors in OrbiMed to put together a massive $218 million Series A for his newest venture, Odyssey Therapeutics. The launch, announced Tuesday morning and co-led by SR One Capital Management, comes not three months after Glick sold First Wave Bio to AzurRx for $229 million.
Chris Lai, founder and CEO of METiS Therapeutics
With the rush of AI permeating the biotech industry, another AI player is coming out well-organized and flush with cash. METiS Therapeutics announced this morning that it successfully put $86 million in the bank, thanks to a Series A.
Two investment firms connected to the Chinese government (People’s Insurance Company of China and China Life Insurance Company) led the financing round — and were joined by Sequoia Capital China, 5Y Capital and several other investors.
Adendra CEO Raj Mehta and scientific co-founder Caetano Reis e Sousa
Once largely a mystery to researchers, the far-flung realm of cells in the immune system has emerged as a fruitful sandbox for drug developers. A new UK biotech is leaning on research into the growing role of dendritic cells in spurring immune responses, and US venture firm Apple Tree Partners is bankrolling its early efforts.
London-based Adendra Therapeutics launched Tuesday with $53 million from founding investor ATP and research out of the Francis Crick Institute looking to leverage new insights into how dendritic cells sic predatory T cells onto tumors — and their role in driving autoimmune disease.
https://endpts.com/were-in-roche-and-genentech-join-forces-on-a-multibillion-dollar-discovery-pact-with-a-brash-ai-upstart/
