Drug discovery in Japan has been steadily declining, and it has reached a crisis point where swift action is needed or pharma companies will leave Japan or stop listing products here, said speakers at the BioJapan 2023 meeting held Oct. 10 to 13 in Yokohama, Japan.
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. agreed to acquire Point Biopharma Global Inc. for $12.50 per share in cash, or about $1.4 billion, in a deal that would bring the pharma company a pipeline of preclinical and clinical radioligand therapies for cancer. The purchase price is an 87% premium to Point’s closing stock price on Oct. 2, and a 68% premium to the 30-day volume-weighted average price. Shares (NASDAQ:PNT) of Point, also of Indianapolis, rose 84.9%, or $5.67, to close at $12.36 on Oct. 3.
The ability of obesity medications to impact co-morbidities, reducing the symptoms and costs associated with down-the-road disease, has attracted significant attention throughout the biopharma industry.
Human lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)) is a lipoprotein complex composed of a low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particle and a large highly polymorphic glycoprotein named apolipoprotein (a) (apo(a)). There is evidence that Lp(a) is linked to cardiovascular disorder risk.
Eli Lilly & Co. has described pyrrolidine compounds targeting apolipoprotein(a) (Apo[a]) and acting as lipoprotein(a)-lowering agents reported to be useful for the treatment of cardiovascular disorders.
When Nektar Therapeutics Inc. decided to push ahead with development of Treg stimulator rezpegaldesleukin (rezpeg) in atopic dermatitis despite what appeared to be middling early stage data, investors weren’t exactly jumping up and down. But it turns out those data are more promising than originally thought.
Strong and complete phase III results for Eli Lilly and Co.’s donanemab for treating early Alzheimer's disease (AD) will no doubt inspire more comparisons with recently approved Leqembi (lecanemab). The newly released data for donanemab show it significantly slowed cognitive and functional decline for those with amyloid-positive early symptomatic AD, which lowered the disease-progression risk.
Sangamo Therapeutics Inc. has signed an evaluation and option agreement with Prevail Therapeutics Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly & Co., through which Prevail has been granted rights to evaluate certain proprietary adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsids developed by Sangamo and may exercise certain options to license these capsids for multiple undisclosed neurological targets.
Dealmaking proved alive and well, with Sangamo Biosciences Inc. disclosing a tie-up worth as much as $1.19 billion with a subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Co., while Mirum Pharmaceuticals Inc. pledged to acquire for $445 million the bile-acid product portfolio owned by Travere Therapeutics Inc.
To bolster its obesity treatment pipeline, Eli Lilly and Co. is buying Versanis Bio Inc. in a massive cash deal that could reach $1.92 billion. The total amount of the deal includes an up-front payment and development and sales milestone payments. Privately held Versanis, of Boston, brings to Lilly its lead asset bimagrumab, a monoclonal antibody that’s enjoying a resurgence since a failure in treating sarcopenia.
