The always-busy American Society of Hematology meeting in December promises to include some especially intriguing datasets from the bispecific antibody space, as multiple players are likely to unveil findings related to their CD20xCD3 prospects.
Although investors’ enthusiasm has cooled toward the biopharma sector, particularly large cap companies, over the past couple of months, they haven’t neglected it entirely and have been willing to reward those companies reporting positive news about their pipeline progress. As a result, a number of companies returned significant gains in their share valuations in August, contributing to the BioWorld Drug Developers index pushing more than 4% higher in the period and up 6% year-to-date.
LONDON – Morphosys AG finally has some heft to put behind its U.S. commercialization ambitions following FDA approval for its long-nurtured anti-CD19 antibody, Monjuvi (tafasitamab-cxix) in relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (r/rDLBCL).
Blincyto (blinatumomab, Amgen Inc.), the first FDA-approved bispecific antibody, gained regulatory approval in 2014, but the intervening years have been fairly bleak for bispecific antibodies as companies worked through technical challenges.
Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. wasted no time moving ahead after last week’s FDA approval of Palforzia for peanut allergy as the Brisbane, Calif.-based company obtained an exclusive worldwide license to develop and commercialize Xencor Inc.’s humanized monoclonal antibody, XmAb-7195, for treating allergic asthma.
