Pandion Therapeutics Inc.'s deal with Astellas Pharma Inc. brings as much as $45 million in up-front money and payments related to research and preclinical activities, with potentially more than $750 million in development and commercial milestone rewards to come, plus royalties if products reach the market.

BEIJING – Sino-U.S. infectious diseases specialist Brii Biosciences Inc., with U.S. offices in Durham, N.C., and San Francisco, and China offices in Beijing and Shanghai, is bringing to greater China three investigational products from anti-infective therapy developer Qpex Biopharma Inc., of San Diego, to treat various multidrug-resistant gram-negative infections.

BOGOTA, Colombia – Looking to dig deeper into its rest-of-the-world market operations, Canadian firm Knight Therapeutics Inc. acquired Latin America's largest biotech company, Biotoscana Investments SA.

HONG KONG – South Korean biotech company Qurient Co. Ltd. has inked a joint venture (JV) foundation deal involving German companies Max Planck Society (MPG), of Munich, and Lead Discovery Center GmbH (LDC) in Dortmund, as well as the 1988 Nobel laureate and biochemist Robert Huber.

HONG KONG – South Korea's major pharmaceutical company GC Pharma Corp., based in Yong-in, Gyeonggi-do, and the Cambridge, Mass.-based U.S. biotech Vaxess Technologies Inc., have partnered to globally commercialize a flu vaccine patch based on Vaxess' Mimix Smart Release Patch technology. The patch is designed to deliver medicines and vaccines through silk microneedles that dissolve at a precise rate.

Building on the positive phase II results reported in June 2018 for pamrevlumab to treat pancreatic cancer, the first dose has been administered in Fibrogen Inc.'s phase III study in patients with unresectable locally advanced pancreatic cancer.

South San Francisco-based Pliant Therapeutics Inc. CEO Bernard Coulie told BioWorld that Novartis AG was drawn to the $80 million deal in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) because other firms working in the integrin space "are very much focused on early stages of the disease, with what we call a metabolic approach. We are addressing with our compound, which is a pure antifibrotic, the late stage of the disease, [categorized as] F3 and F4, where most of the liver is already gone. We think that the real market will be there, because that's where health care costs go up" and where patients facing an increased mortality rate "need proper treatment rather than changing their lifestyle" while using something milder.

DUBLIN – Zealand Pharma A/S has up to now generated its pipeline of peptide drugs internally, but it has gone hunting in biotech's bargain bin to find its first externally sourced asset.

DUBLIN – Fresh from the recent FDA approval of its smallpox and monkeypox vaccine, Jynneos (smallpox and monkeypox vaccine, live, nonreplicating), Bavarian Nordic A/S has struck a deal with Glaxosmithkline plc to take on ownership of two commercial vaccines, for rabies and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), in return for €301 million (US$336 million) up front and up to €495 million in milestones. The two products are forecast to attain combined revenues of €175 million this year.

With Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s acquisition of Achillion Pharmaceuticals Inc. for about $930 million up front, Alexion expands and diversifies its pipeline into familiar territory – treating complement-mediated diseases. Blue Bell, Pa.-based Achillion is developing oral, small-molecule factor D inhibitors for treating complement alternative pathway-mediated rare diseases, including paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria and C3 glomerulopathy.