Two-year-old Ensem Therapeutics Inc. landed a deal potentially worth $1.33 billion, if all milestones are met, with Beigene Ltd. to advance its lead IND-ready oral cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) inhibitor. Beigene, which has a presence in Basel, Switzerland, Beijing, and Cambridge, Mass., plans to fold the inhibitor into its breast cancer efforts, which includes its internally discovered phase I CDK4 inhibitor. Rights to the Ensem product are exclusive and global.
South Korean pharmaceutical Voronoi Inc. said that New Jersey-based Pyramid Biosciences Inc. terminated its previous $846 million deal for Voronoi’s solid and breast cancer drug candidate, VRN-08, in a letter dated Oct. 24, 2023.
If there had been any lingering market concerns following the temporary partial clinical hold earlier this year for Arcellx Inc.’s multiple myeloma CAR T-cell therapy, CART-ddBCMA, they were likely put to rest as partner Gilead Sciences Inc.’s Kite unit expanded the scope of the firms’ late 2022 collaboration to include lymphomas. At the same time, Kite exercised an option to negotiate a license for Arcellx’s ARC-Sparx program, ACLX-001, in multiple myeloma.
In a global deal worth up to $770.5 million in up-front and milestone payments, Stevenage, U.K.-based Autifony Therapeutics Ltd. signed with Dublin-based Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc for two ion channel-targeting programs aimed at finding and developing new drugs for neurological disorders. Autifony will take selected candidates through preclinical development, while Jazz will cover clinical development, manufacturing, regulatory activities and commercialization.
Legend Biotech Corp. is entering what it no doubt hopes will be another fruitful collaboration with big pharma. Legend’s wholly owned subsidiary, Legend Biotech Ireland Ltd., will work with Novartis AG in an exclusive global development and license agreement for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies targeting DLL3.
October marked a historic milestone for the biopharma industry, with deal values hitting $44.91 billion. It was the highest amount ever recorded by BioWorld, topping a deal value of $42.45 billion in December 2022. While the cumulative value of biopharma deals through Q3 lagged behind the previous year, October’s outstanding value has catapulted this year ahead. In the first 10 months of 2023, deal value reached $175.2 billion, compared to $148.56 billion recorded in the same period in 2022.
The artificial intelligence company Recursion Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Bayer AG have upped the ante on their 2020 collaboration deal to include precision oncology, with the possibility of more than $1 billion in potential milestone payments for Recursion.
Astrazeneca plc will pay up to $2 billion for Eccogene Co. Ltd.’s oral weight loss candidate, ECC-5004, as big and small pharma players alike work to gain ground in the burgeoning obesity market where Eli Lilly and Co. scored the latest U.S. FDA approval of Zepbound (tirzepatide).
Hitching onto the emerging drug class of degrader-antibody conjugates (DAC), U.S. pharma giant Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) is picking up rights to the U.S. and Korean biotech Orum Therapeutics Inc.’s blood cancer candidate, ORM-6151, in a potential $180 million deal.
Demand for its COVID-19 vaccine might be declining, but Biontech SE is putting its revenue to good use, picking up rights to a bispecific antibody candidate from Biotheus Inc. in exchange for $55 million up front and potentially more than $1 billion in development, regulatory and sales milestones.
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