Wellington Life Sciences general partner Regina Hodits, during a talk with CBT Advisors CEO Steve Dickman at the recent Biopharm America meeting, said the disaster scenario feared for European investments when COVID-19 struck “turned out very different. We never have a lot of time off in summer, not as much as we would want to, but this year we certainly had no time off,” as portfolio firms found money and Wellington tapped new opportunities.
Deals by Bayer AG’s “impact investment unit” called Leaps that build upon each other let the Leverkusen, Germany-based firm “basically renew [the company’s] technology platform” by tapping fresh sources, said Leaps head Jurgen Eckhardt. And the unit is casting nets widely.
HONG KONG – Seongnam-Si, South Korea-based ABL Bio Inc. hopes to file IND applications for two solid tumor-focused bispecific antibodies (BsAb), CEO Sang-hoon Lee, told the 2020 Bioplus Interphex Korea conference.
As Johnson & Johnson (J&J) made public the launch of a phase III trial with its COVID-19 vaccine, officials from the company and others at the virtual Biopharm America meeting discussed modes of innovation in the pandemic era.
HONG KONG – New data from Beigene Ltd. recently presented at the ESMO Virtual Congress 2020 showed its PARP inhibitor pamiparib helped shrink tumors in almost 65% of people with platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer treated with the candidate during a pivotal trial.
Early stage investment strategies and dealmaking in the age of COVID-19 became topics during the Biopharm America meeting, itself held virtually this year because of the pandemic. Kevin Johnson, partner and co-founder of European life sciences backer Medicxi, hailed an “unprecedented upswing” on the financial front. “There is no winter,” he said. “It’s amazing.”
Gilead Sciences Inc.’s recent decision to acquire Immunomedics Inc. looks even smarter now in light of the full data in a phase III study of Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan-hziy) released at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) over the weekend.
Gastric cancers were the focus of the final plenary session of the European Society for Medical Oncology’s Virtual Congress 2020. Results from the Checkmate-649, ATTRACTION-4, and Keynote-590 studies showed that advanced gastroesophageal tumors can benefit from first-line treatment with PD-1 checkpoint blockers in addition to chemotherapy, staving off progression and death by a few months.
One of the highlights of the first presidential program at this year’s European Society for Medical Oncology 2020 Virtual Congress were results from the Checkmate 9ER study by Toni Choueiri, who is the director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Checkmate 9ER tested the use of a combination of checkpoint blocker Opdivo (nivolumab, Bristol Myers Squibb Co.) and receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor Cabometyx (cabozantinib, Exelixis Inc.) as first-line treatment for advanced renal cell carcinoma.
CDK 4/6 inhibitor Verzenio (abemaciclib, Eli Lilly and Co.) reduced the risk of recurrence in women with high-risk hormone receptor driven and HER2-negative breast cancer when added to endocrine therapy in the monarchE phase III trial.
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