For a whopping $7.1 billion up front, Roche AG is buying Telavant Holdings Inc., a firm that is owned by Roivant Sciences Ltd. and Pfizer Inc. The deal also includes $150 million on the back end, and Roche gains rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize a fully human monoclonal antibody targeting tumor necrosis factor-like ligand 1A, RVT-3101, for treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and possibly other diseases in the U.S. and Japan. Pfizer retains the rights for the rest of the world.
Deals involving antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) therapies continue to gain momentum with Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. and Merck & Co. Inc. the latest firms to team up on global development and commercialization activities, as Daiichi offers up rights to three of its potentially first-in-class ADC candidates for $22 billion, making it the largest ADC agreement to date.
Elevar Therapeutics Inc. and Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd.’s licensing deal for camrelizumab (SHR-1210; Airuika in China) will add the PD-1 antibody to Elevar’s liver cancer armory for pairing with rivoceranib, its tyrosine kinase inhibitor on the brink of U.S. FDA review.
A new deal between privately held Hummingbird Bioscience Pte. Ltd. and Endeavor Biomedicines Inc. is just one of three antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) agreements reached in the past week, marking a fourth-quarter surge for the therapy. Endeavor has acquired the exclusive, worldwide rights to Hummingbird’s HMBD-501, a HER3-targeted ADC with an exatecan payload. Hummingbird could receive up-front and milestone payments of up to $430 million, along with royalties from net sales.
Royalty monetization is a financing tactic that is becoming increasingly popular during challenging times, and PTC Therapeutics Inc. is the latest firm to leverage a marketed drug to pay off debt and fuel its development pipeline. The South Plainfield, N.J.-based company agreed to sell up to $1.5 billion of its Evrysdi (risdiplam) royalty stream to Royalty Pharma plc, of New York. Evrysdi is a survival motor neuron 2 RNA splicing modifier approved by the U.S. FDA in 2020 to treat spinal muscular atrophy.
Korean bioventure GI Innovation Inc. inched closer to achieving its goal of “five tech transfer deals in five years” with another licensing deal for its allergy drug, GI-301, with Japan-based Maruho Co. Ltd. for ₩298 billion (US$220.7 million), although share prices still dropped on the news.
While biopharma dealmaking remains active, a strong third quarter (Q3) was not enough to bring it to the same level seen during each of the last three years, although values are coming close. At the same time, M&As appear to be rising above 2022, but even with the increase, they still lag behind other years. If the Pfizer Inc./Seagen Inc. merger, worth $43 billion, closes before the end of 2023, for example, M&As will still not come close to the overall value seen in 2019 and 2020.
Monte Rosa Therapeutics Inc. has cut a deal with Roche Holding AG that brings the molecular glue degrader-based medicines developer an up-front $50 million and the possibility of more than $2 billion in milestone payments. The Boston-based company coupled the deal by releasing positive interim data from the phase I dose-escalation portion of its phase I/II open-label, multisite study of MRT-2359 in Myc-driven solid tumors.
What CEO Jason Okazaki called Assembly Biosciences Inc.’s “monumental” deal for new antivirals with Gilead Sciences Inc. brings $100 million right away, consisting of an $84.8 million up-front payment and a $15.2 million equity investment. Wall Street liked it, and shares of South San Francisco-based Assembly (NASDAQ:ASMB) closed Oct. 17 at $1.25, up 52 cents or 72%, on word of the 12-year arrangement. Gilead (NASDAQ:GILD) ended at $80.48, up $1.28.
Danish obesity and diabetes drugmaker Novo Nordisk A/S is set to acquire the Singapore-based KBP Biosciences Co. Ltd.’s hypertension drug, ocedurenone (KBP-5074), for potentially $1.3 billion, creating a platform to increase its reach in the cardiovascular (CV) landscape beyond a crowding obesity market.
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