While its mRNA COVID-19 vaccination effort gets the most attention these days, Moderna Inc. is also moving in other directions as the company will lead mRNA discovery programs drawn from its early stage pipeline in new collaborations with Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Italy’s Chiesi Farmaceutici SpA. These two deals highlight the “huge opportunity for mRNA beyond SARS-CoV-2 and vaccines,” Piper Sandler analysts wrote Sept. 16.
HONG KONG – Osaka-based Takeda Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. has divested a portfolio of non-core prescription pharmaceuticals products to Greifswald, Germany-based Cheplapharm Arzneimittel GmbH as part of an ongoing program intended to optimize and simplify its portfolio.
In the company’s largest acquisition and potentially the fifth biggest biotech M&A ever, Gilead Sciences Inc. will acquire Immunomedics Inc. for $21 billion in a move that substantially transforms Gilead’s oncology portfolio.
Though falling short of the outright takeover that some may have hoped for, Merck & Co. Inc.’s dual tie-ups with Seattle Genetics Inc. (Seagen) put the latter in solid position to shop for acquisitions of its own.
LONDON – The U.K. government has signed a €1.4 billion (US$1.7 billion) advance purchase agreement with French biotech Valneva SE, for the supply of up to 190 million doses of its attenuated COVID-19 vaccine, VLA-2001.
Click Therapeutics Inc. and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH inked a deal valued at more than $500 million to collaborate on the development and commercialization of a prescription-based digital therapeutic for schizophrenia. The mobile application, currently called CT-155, uses cognitive and neurobehavioral techniques to reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia, such as cognitive deficits and impaired social functioning.
A nearly $2 billion global development and commercialization deal with Abbvie Inc. and a $418 million private placement have bolstered I-Mab Biopharma Co. Ltd.’s position globally. I-Mab framed the deal as being the largest out-licensing and global partnership transaction ever executed by a China-based biotech.
In its second acquisition of the past four weeks, Lodo Therapeutics Corp., acquired Hibiskus Biopharma Inc. plus exclusive worldwide rights from the University of California Riverside and Michigan State University to preclinical proteasome and immunoproteasome inhibitors developed by Hibiskus’ two co-founders.
The massive deal Jounce Therapeutics Inc. has cut with Gilead Sciences Inc., an agreement that could eventually add up to about $805 million, will strengthen Jounce’s ability to develop its pipeline and choose new partners, the company’s CEO and president told BioWorld.
Times have changed at Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. since it spun out Akcea Therapeutics Inc. in 2015. The company’s evolution is such that Ionis is now ready to bring Akcea back into the fold by acquiring the remaining 24% of its affiliate.
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