HONG KONG – Eisai Co. Ltd. has received not one, but two approvals from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), for its anticancer agent Remitoro (denileukin diftitox) and multiple receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor Lenvima (lenvatinib mesylate). Both approvals, each for a rare disease indication, were granted based on phase II trial results, instead after the usual phase III trials.
Intec Pharma Ltd. is merging with privately held Decoy Biosystems Inc. and the combined company will continue advancing Decoy’s immunotherapy technology for treating a variety of tumors and chronic viral infections.
HONG KONG – The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is making headway with its 3D holotomography technology, which enables a more accurate and systematic way to view cell-to-cell interactions. This could be a game changer for assessing cell therapy.
Century Therapeutics Inc. raised $160 million in a series C round to progress its preclinical pipeline of allogeneic cell therapies for cancer, which are derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and to expand its operational, laboratory and production facilities across several locations.
Roivant Sciences Ltd. is buying Silicon Therapeutics LLC for $450 million in Roivant equity plus regulatory and commercial milestone payments. The combination of Silicon’s computational physics platform for in silico design or optimizing small-molecule drugs with Roivant’s newly unveiled protein degradation platform will be powered by Roivant’s machine learning models.
HONG KONG – Beijing-based Beigene Ltd. struck its second deal outside China this year, signing an option and license agreement with Boston Immune Technologies & Therapeutics Inc. (BITT) for the latter’s tumor necrosis factor receptor 2 (TNFR2) antagonist antibodies. Beigene will exclusively develop, manufacture and commercialize BITT’s TNFR2 antagonist antibodies in Asia, excepting Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
A U.S. study has shown for the first time that enhancing signals from the nociceptive nervous system could provide new approaches to improve the collection of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) for treating cancers of the blood and bone marrow.
HONG KONG – Overland Pharmaceuticals Inc., a company created to bring innovative medicines to China, this week revealed the formation of two joint ventures intended to deliver on that mission, one with ADC Therapeutics SA and another with Allogene Therapeutics Inc.
Trillium Therapeutics Inc. is playing a hot hand. The immuno-oncology company followed recently revealed positive data from two dose-escalation phase I studies targeting CD47 by pulling down a $25 million equity investment from Pfizer Inc. Now the company has priced a $130 million underwritten public offering of 10 million common shares at $13 each.
Velosbio Inc., a San Diego-based company developing cancer therapies targeting receptor tyrosine kinase-like orphan receptor 1 (ROR1), has raised $137 million in series B financing to support development of its lead antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), VLS-101, and continued expansion of its pipeline.
