LONDON – Retinai Medicine AG reported a three-year master agreement with Novartis AG to apply its artificial intelligence (AI) tools in ophthalmology clinical trials. The first project will look at how machine learning can be used to speed up and improve the interpretation of optical coherence tomography (OCT) images of patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Atara Biotherapeutics Inc. licensed a pair of mesothelin-directed CAR T treatments, ATA-2271 and ATA-3271, to Bayer AG for $60 million up front with the potential for $610 million in development, regulatory and commercialization milestone payments. Atara is also eligible for tiered royalties that peak in the low double-digit percentage of net sales of the two drugs. South San Francisco-based Atara will provide translational and clinical manufacturing services for the two drugs that will be reimbursed by Bayer.
LONDON – DNA damage repair (DDR) specialist Artios Pharma Ltd. has sealed a $860 million per target deal with Merck KGaA, around a series of small-molecule DNA nuclease inhibitors. The deal, for up to eight targets, will see Artios get $30 million in up-front and near-term milestones to take programs to the point at which Merck will decide on its option to take them in-house. For any products that make it to market, the $860 million in milestones along the way will be followed by double-digit royalties on sales. Subject to certain conditions, Cambridge-based Artios has rights to do joint development with Darmstadt, Germany-based Merck.
Frontier Medicines Corp. co-founder, chairman and CEO Chris Varma told BioWorld that his firm’s deal with Abbvie Inc. happened by way of a “highly competitive process, thankfully, with multiple parties at the table,” and the tie-up means money that could “well exceed” $1 billion.
HONG KONG and BEIJING – Hong Kong-listed China Grand Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Holdings Ltd. and Niel, Belgium-based mRNA vaccine specialist Etherna Immunotherapies NV are setting up a joint venture to develop, produce and commercialize mRNA prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines.
PERTH, Australia – Melbourne-based Telix Pharmaceuticals Ltd. is acquiring Scintec Diagnostics GmbH subsidiary Therapharm GmbH in a deal worth AU$33 million (US$24.24 million) plus royalties.
Zug, Switzerland-based Therapharm has developed a portfolio of radiolabeled diagnostic and therapeutic products, and the deal brings Telix a new targeting asset in hematology, Telix CEO Chris Behrenbruch told analysts during a Dec. 1 conference call.
If there are three takeaways from this year’s dealmaking efforts, they appear to be record-setting partnerships, lackluster M&As, and massive amounts of research funding via the U.S. government.
The whopper deal between Biogen Inc. and Sage Therapeutics Inc. – a global collaboration and licensing deal involving the latter’s zuranolone (also known as SAGE-217) for major depressive disorder (MDD), postpartum depression (PPD) and other psychiatric disorders, as well as SAGE-324 for essential tremor (ET) and neurological disorders – drew mixed reviews from Wall Street. And, for Biogen investors, the would-be Alzheimer’s disease (AD) therapy aducanumab remains front of mind.
With its acquisition of privately held Oncoimmune Ltd. for an up-front $425 million in cash, Merck & Co. Inc. ups its COVID-19 game with CD24Fc, a recombinant fusion protein targeting the innate immune system that is faring well in treating pandemic patients.
Precision Biosciences Inc. CEO Matthew Kane said the company is in “active discussions around additional partnerships in vivo and in other areas across our organization,” after scoring a deal with Eli Lilly and Co. centered on the firm’s Arcus genome-editing platform. “There’s no conceivable way in the near term that we’re going to advance all of the possibilities of Arcus on our own,” he said.
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