The challenging financial environment of 2022 will lead to an increase in partnerships, according to representatives of the two big Swiss biopharma companies, Roche Holding AG and Novartis AG.
Nuance Pharma Co. Ltd. signed a licensing deal with Denmark’s Bavarian Nordic A/S for rights to its MVA-BN RSV vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea and certain Southeast Asian countries. Shanghai-based Nuance plans to run its own phase I and phase III trials in China to support regulatory approval of MVA-BN RSV in China, which will be conducted separately from Bavarian Nordic's own phase III trial planned to begin in the first half of 2022.
Fungal biosphere specialist Lifemine Therapeutics Inc. has struck a goldmine through a $175 million series C financing and an R&D collaboration allowing Glaxosmithkline plc (GSK) to use the company's platform to identify small-molecule leads.
Volastra Therapeutics Inc., dedicated to taking aim at chromosomal instability (CIN) to design cancer drugs by way of its CINtech platform,, scored a potential $1 billion-plus agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) to find synthetic lethal targets as drug candidates.
Edigene Inc. has obtained nonexclusive, global rights to technology from Boston Children’s Hospital for technology related to increasing fetal hemoglobin levels by disrupting B-cell lymphoma/leukemia 11A (BCL11A) expression at the genomic level to treat hemoglobinopathies.
Everest Medicines Ltd. has acquired rights to develop and commercialize Nefecon (budesonide) for the treatment of primary IgA nephropathy in South Korea from Calliditas Therapeutics AB.
Chinese state-owned enterprise China Meheco Group Co. Ltd. has signed a deal with Pfizer Inc. to be its mainland China partner for the commercialization of the COVID-19 pill Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir), which won conditional approval from China’s NMPA earlier this year.
Nec Corp. has acquired all of Vaximm AG’s neoantigen program assets. Tokyo-based Nec will conduct the acquisition via its subsidiary, Nec Oncoimmunity AS.
Bridge Biotherapeutics Inc. has signed an exclusive option-to-license agreement for Cellionbiomed Inc.’s preclinical ion channel modulator, BBT-301, thus adding a second idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) candidate to its fibrotic diseases portfolio. The company hopes to enter the clinic with the drug in the U.S. by the end of 2022.
Novartis AG, an early and active player in bringing gene therapies to market, has agreed to pay Voyager Therapeutics Inc. $54 million up front and up to $1.7 billion in fees and milestone payments for options to license up to five next-generation adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsids to use as gene therapy vectors for neurological diseases.
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