Drug sponsors should not focus on influencing legislators about how to price rare-disease and orphan therapies, Ovid Therapeutics Inc. CEO Jeremy Levin said during a panel talk at Biotech Showcase. “The game is not in Washington,” he said. “The game is on the ground in each state, where you need to convince the public, the individuals, the patients that, in fact, you are bringing value.”
Computational technology and high-quality data will help scientists to improve R&D and find better treatments for human diseases, according to experts at the Wuxi Global Forum 2022.
“There isn’t a better place to be” now than in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) drug development, said Phyllis Ferrell, global head of external engagement in AD and neurodegeneration at Eli Lilly and Co., during Biotech Showcase’s panel talk titled, “Aduhelm: Stimulating the Next Generation of AD Treatment.”
Merck & Co. Inc., building on a year-old deal with Aligos Therapeutics Inc., has moved to in-license an early stage nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) oligonucleotide program Aligos had previously advanced independently. The amended deal also gives Merck the right to add a new NASH target to the partnership, in addition to those already part of the agreement. With Aligos eligible to receive up to $460 million in development and commercialization milestones as well as tiered royalties on net sales per target, its rewards could reach $1.38 billion.
The deals continued to flow during day two of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Privately held Arrakis Inc., which specializes in aiming at small-molecule RNA targets, primarily cancers, has signed onto a collaboration with Amgen Inc. that could bring in billions in future payments should it hit all the milestones and program options are exercised. Dren Bio Inc., meanwhile, will collaborate with Pfizer Inc. to develop bispecific antibodies for oncology targets. Dren could receive more than $1 billion in the deal that includes a $25 million in cash up-front payment from Pfizer.
A raft of potentially high-value drug development collaborations, most for gene and RNA therapies, led the first day of the 40th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference Monday. Pfizer Inc. enlisted Beam Therapeutic Inc. to advance in vivo base editing programs for up to $1.35 billion, while Bayer AG tapped Mammoth Biosciences Inc.’s in vivo CRISPR systems expertise in a potential $1 billion-plus deal. Selecta Biosciences Inc. inked a new $1.1 billion partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks Inc. to develop next-generation gene therapy capsids, while Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. agreed to pay Stoke Therapeutics Inc. as much as $967 million to develop RNA-based medicines. Work on new mRNA vaccines and therapies is also proceeding, with both Pfizer and Biontech SE announcing new collaborations in the space.
New and updated preclinical and clinical data presented by biopharma firms at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting, including: Century, Forma.
New and updated preclinical and clinical data presented by biopharma firms at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting, including: Beyondspring, Coimmune, Geron, JW, Novartis, Oncolytic, Oncternal, Oric, Oryzon, Ose, Pfizer, Poseida, Precigen, Rheos, Roche, Rocket, Sangamo, Sanofi, Seagen, Secura, Sierra, Syndax, Talaris, Tessa, TG, Viracta, Wugen, Xencor.
New and updated preclinical and clinical data presented by biopharma firms at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting, including: 2seventy, Actinium, Agios, Allogene, Antegene, Apellis, Aptose, Ascentage, Atar, Bantam, Bioinvent, Daiichi, Harpoon, Iaso, Innocare, Innovent, Janssen, Karyopharm, Keros, Kymera, Lantern, Legend, Magenta, Mereo, Mustang, Nektar, Neximmune, Nextcure, Nkarta.
Two trials presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) showed that treatment with the antithrombin inhibitor fitusiran reduced the bleeding rate in patients with severe hemophilia by roughly 90%, regardless of whether they had type A or B, and whether they had developed antibodies to recombinant clotting factors.
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