Amylyx Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s acquisition of GLP-1 receptor antagonist avexitide for $35.1 million from Eiger Biopharmaceuticals Inc. could bring the firm “to the forefront of the obesity and diabetes drug landscape in a unique way,” said H.C. Wainwright analyst Andrew Fein. Co-CEO and co-founder Justin Klee said the deal came after Amylyx checked out “hundreds of assets” over the last few years, and its closing brought added attention to phase III-ready, first-in-class avexitide.
Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. is adding one more income stream to its portfolio, with the $100 million acquisition of Apeiron Biologics AG, owner of royalty rights to Qarziba, a treatment for high risk neuroblastoma that is currently marketed in 35 countries and is en route to approval in the U.S.
In the third-largest acquisition announced this year, pharma giant Eli Lilly and Co. is buying oral integrin therapies developer Morphic Holding Inc. for $3.2 billion. Morphic stock (NASDAQ:MORF) got a tremendous boost from the acquisition, with shares closing 75% upward at $55.74 each on July 8, the day the deal was announced.
Nanjing, China-based Iaso Biotherapeutics Co. Ltd. has bought out global rights to human anti-B cell maturation antigen CAR T Fucaso (equecabtagene autoleucel) from partner Innovent Biologics Inc.
Seoul, South Korea-based Genexine Co. Ltd. plans to merge with privately held EPD Biotherapeutics Co. Ltd. by October 2024 to build a pipeline of novel targeted protein degradation therapeutics with EPD Bio’s BioPROTAC platform technology.
Curevac AG is casting off the deadweight of its pandemic push to translate its mRNA technology into a marketed COVID-19 vaccine, in a new €1.45 billion (US$1.6 billion) deal in which GSK plc will acquire full rights to infectious disease vaccines the two were co-developing.
At a time when much of the biopharma space can’t seem to get enough of antibody-drug conjugates (ADC), Bristol Myers Squibb Co. is backing away from a potential $3 billion-plus collaboration with Eisai Co. Ltd., handing back full rights to the latter’s folate receptor alpha-targeting ADC, farletuzumab ecteribulin (FZEC), citing a portfolio reprioritization. Global rights to FZEC now reside with Tokyo-based Eisai, which said it intends to accelerate work on the candidate, which is in three clinical studies, including two phase II trials in gynecological cancers and non-small-cell lung cancer.
Merck & Co. Inc. is getting the exclusive, global rights from Orion Corp. to develop the oral prostate therapy, ODM-208, which the two companies hammered out a deal for in 2022. Orion could now bring in up to $30 million in development milestones, as much as $625 million in regulatory milestone payments, and up to $975 million in sales-based milestones. The deal adds up to $1.6 billion for Espoo, Finland-based Orion. Orion, which has a number of other deals with other companies, could also receive annually tiered royalty payments ranging from a low double-digit rate up to a rate in the low 20s on net sales for any commercialized licensed product.
Yuhan Corp., of Seoul, South Korea, has inked a ₩150 billion (US$108.6 million) deal with Korean biotech Ubix Therapeutics Inc. to gain exclusive global rights to UBX-103, Ubix’s oral small-molecule androgen receptor degrader for prostate cancer. Yuhan also announced July 1 that it gained the U.S. FDA’s nod to start a phase I study of a Gaucher disease drug candidate called YH-35995.
South Korea’s SK Bioscience Co. Ltd. has entered a cross-shareholding acquisition deal with Germany’s Klocke Pharma-Service GmbH to acquire its contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), IDT Biologika Corp.
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