The deals continued to flow during day two of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Privately held Arrakis Inc., which specializes in aiming at small-molecule RNA targets, primarily cancers, has signed onto a collaboration with Amgen Inc. that could bring in billions in future payments should it hit all the milestones and program options are exercised. Dren Bio Inc., meanwhile, will collaborate with Pfizer Inc. to develop bispecific antibodies for oncology targets. Dren could receive more than $1 billion in the deal that includes a $25 million in cash up-front payment from Pfizer.
Medtronic plc continued its aggressive acquisition strategy today with the announcement of an agreement to purchase Affera Inc. Medtronic Chairman and CEO Geoff Martha revealed in a presentation on Jan. 10 at the virtual edition of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference that his company was paying $925 million for the cardiac mapping and navigation company. The total reflects $250 million in payments assuming Affera meets “contingent considerations.”
Owens & Minor Inc. (O&M) sent Apria Inc. shares out of the ballpark with the announcement of its acquisition of the at-home health care company for $1.45 billion in cash early this morning. Apria’s stock (NASDAQ:APR) closed Friday at $29.72, opened today at $37.16 and rose incrementally throughout the day to close at $37.48. O&M’s stock (NYSE:OMI) ended the week at $45.08; it ebbed sharply to $40.19 on the news before recovering to $45.35 at the end of the trading day.
Prism Biolab Co. Ltd. has added Genentech Inc., a unit of Roche Holding AG, to the list of users for its peptide mimetic small-molecules library after signing a multitarget research collaboration and licensing agreement. Under the agreement, Tokyo-based Prism Biolab will open its Pepmetics Library, a library of peptide mimetic small molecules, to screen against targets selected by Roche and Genentech.
Inveniai LLC and Kyowa Kirin Co. Ltd. have expanded their partnership a second time, inking their most recent multiple drug discovery agreement. The multiyear deal will see the duo discover novel targets and treatments for therapeutic areas across Kyowa Kirin’s portfolio and areas of interest using Inveniai’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform.
A raft of potentially high-value drug development collaborations, most for gene and RNA therapies, led the first day of the 40th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference Monday. Pfizer Inc. enlisted Beam Therapeutic Inc. to advance in vivo base editing programs for up to $1.35 billion, while Bayer AG tapped Mammoth Biosciences Inc.’s in vivo CRISPR systems expertise in a potential $1 billion-plus deal. Selecta Biosciences Inc. inked a new $1.1 billion partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks Inc. to develop next-generation gene therapy capsids, while Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. agreed to pay Stoke Therapeutics Inc. as much as $967 million to develop RNA-based medicines. Work on new mRNA vaccines and therapies is also proceeding, with both Pfizer and Biontech SE announcing new collaborations in the space.
Century Therapeutics Inc.’s $3.25 billion deal with Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) was the largest of four billion-dollar-plus agreements announced Dec. 10, piggybacking on a busy week that includes the start of the 40th annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
Astrazeneca plc’s recently acquired Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. has signed a deal worth up to $760 million with Neurimmune AG, the Swiss biotech that discovered Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm (aducanumab), buying rights to amyloidosis drug NI-006. While Biogen Inc.’s Aduhelm targets amyloid plaques thought to cause Alzheimer’s in the brain, the phase Ib drug in Alexion’s deal is intended to tackle the build-up of the rogue protein that causes heart disease caused by transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM).
Making good on ambitions to increase its say in the development of drug candidates from its AI-driven discovery platform, as well as the breadth of roles the system serves, Exscientia plc said Jan. 7 it will work with longtime partner Sanofi SA to develop up to 15 new small-molecule candidates for oncology and immunology indications. Sanofi will pay Exscientia $100 million up front and up to $5.2 billion in total milestones, plus tiered royalties, it said.
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