The May 2014 approval of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.’s Entyvio (vedolizumab) brought welcome news in the form of an important mechanism of action for patients with ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, but also means a burdensome course of administration – 30 minutes’ worth of infusion every six weeks, a drawback that other developers are trying to remedy. Standouts among the up-and-comers are Morphic Holding Inc., with an oral candidate that works through the same mechanism of action as Entyvio, and Protagonist Therapeutics Inc.
Medshine Discovery Inc. has patented new sulfinylpyridine-containing nonreceptor tyrosine-protein kinase TYK2 inhibitors expected to be useful for the treatment of Crohn's disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and ulcerative colitis.
Qilu Regor Therapeutics Inc. has identified (hetero)arylamino-cyclohexyl-sulfonyl derivatives acting as C-C chemokine receptor type 6 (CCR6) antagonists reported to be useful for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
In the largest study to date for Crohn's disease, researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard identified rare variants of 10 genes associated with this pathology. The researchers sequenced the exomes of 110,000 people, 30,000 patients with Crohn's and 80,000 without this condition, with the participation of a hundred international scientific institutions.
Bristol Myers Squibb Co. has agreed to pay up to $1.9 billion plus royalties, plus an up-front payment of undisclosed value, for Gentibio Inc.’s expertise in engineered regulatory T cells (Tregs) to treat inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). The agreement follows soon after BMS’ $4.1 billion acquisition of cancer biotech Turning Point Therapeutics Inc., as well as an expansion of its oncology partnership with Bridgebio Pharma Inc. to the tune of $905 million.
Agomab Therapeutics NV raised $40.5 million in a series B extension led by Pfizer Inc., which has also come on board as an adviser on the development of AGMB-129, Agomab’s candidate therapy for fibrostenotic Crohn’s disease. The new cash raises the series B total to $114 million.
The latest in a spate of draft and final guidances released recently by the U.S. FDA could help sponsors developing drugs to treat early stage solid tumor malignancies.
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. has stress-tested Engitix Ltd.’s extracellular matrix (ECM) drug discovery platform and is coming back for more, expanding the existing collaboration from liver fibrosis to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
It’s no mystery why Scipher Medicine Corp. successfully raised $110 million in a series D financing round to further develop the company’s precision medicine platform. The company aims to address one of most modern medicine’s most challenging enigmas: how to eliminate the cost and adverse effects associated with the prescription of expensive medications that provide life-changing outcomes for some and no benefit for others. The new funds boost Scipher’s total funding to $227 million, of which $192 million has come into the Waltham, Mass.-based company’s coffers in the last 12 months.
Sangamo Therapeutics Inc. has reported preclinical results for IL23R-CAR-Tregs, a strategy based on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified regulatory T cells (Tregs) for the treatment of Crohn's disease.
