Minoryx Therapeutics SL is banking what it described as “a significant double-digit up-front payment” and could earn up to €258 million (US$262.1 million) more in milestone payments and development funding from a license agreement with Neuraxpharm GmbH, which covers European rights to its lead drug candidate leriglitazone in central nervous system indications. It will also receive tiered double-digit royalties on product sales. Those could start to flow sooner than is the case in most biotech licensing deals. Leriglitazone, a brain-penetrant metabolite of the peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma (PPAR gamma) agonist pioglitazone, is currently undergoing regulatory review at the EMA in X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy.

Some drug manufacturers facing a slate of new US refunds and rebates

In addition to the Medicare inflation rebate and the other pricing reforms of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), manufacturers of certain Part B drugs will be subject to a refund provision tucked away in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was signed into U.S. law a year ago. That provision puts manufacturers on the hook for the unused portion of drugs in single-dose containers or single-use packages. Some of the details, and timing, of how the discarded drug refund will be implemented remain up in the air as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services figures out how to align that program with the IRA rebates that apply to both Part B and D drugs.

Asia Summit on Global Health zooms in on health care collaborations 

Fresh off announcing a new $1.2 billion joint drug discovery and development project with Sanofi SA, Insilico Medicine Inc. founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov joined a chorus of executives at the Asia Summit on Global Health in proclaiming the critical importance of partnership among biopharma, tech companies and regulators, even amid rising tensions between China and the West. “The biotechnology sector is in a ‘biotech winter,’” he said, noting significant over-investment in recent years. Working together increases the odds of success, he and others suggested.

Also in the news

Allysta, Alzecure, Ambrx, Apim, Astrazeneca, Atyr, Avstera, Beckley, Biocryst, Biomebank, Biovaxys, Chemomab, Dynamicure, Eikonoklastes, Enanta, Enterobiotix, Flugen, Geovax, Imaginab, Imunon, Inflarx, Lipidio, Meissa, Merrimack, NFL, Nordic Nanovector, Novartis, Novavax, Orange Grove, Oryzon, OS Acquisition, Parthenon, Psyence, Rallybio, Regeneron, Revolo, Sanofi, Trevena, Viatris, Xilio