Redx Pharma plc has closed its biggest transaction to date, selling a preclinical KRAS inhibitor program to Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc in a potential $880 million deal. Of that, $10 million will be paid up front, with the balance to come in development and commercialization milestones. For any product that makes it to market, Redx will in addition receive tiered mid-single digit percentage royalties.
The BioWorld Cancer Index (BCI) had a stellar performance in 2023, finishing the year with an increase of 76.26%. The rise is a notable spike from the end of the third quarter, when it was up 22.96%. BCI’s performance surpassed both the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and stands in contrast to 2022, when the BCI concluded the year with a decline of 41.98%, and 2021, when the index saw a decrease of 36.34% over the year.
More than 30 years after entering the scene as a first-generation monoclonal antibody pioneer, Morphosys AG is to be acquired by Novartis AG for €2.7 billion (US$2.9 billion). The all-cash deal, announced after Nasdaq closed on Feb. 5, will see Novartis paying €68 per share, a premium of 94% to the average daily price in the month leading up to Jan. 25, when rumors of a takeover started swirling.
Taipei-based precision oncology firm Anbogen Therapeutics Inc. drew $12.5 million in a series A funding round to propel two major clinical assets in its cancer pipeline.
Halia Therapeutics Inc. has, its CEO confidently asserts, taken an atypical road to building its infrastructure and financing. The Lehi, Utah-based company just completed a $30 million series C financing to further develop its lead asset, a selective and orally bioavailable first-in-class NLRP3/NEK7 inflammasome inhibitor.
2seventy bio Inc. shares (NASDAQ:TSVT) rose 15% or 52 cents, to close Jan. 30 at $4.01 on word that the Cambridge, Mass.-based firm is selling its R&D pipeline to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., which will move the work forward by way of a new company called Regeneron Cell Medicines.
Hookipa Pharma Inc.’s nearly $1 billion collaboration with Roche Holding AG dissolved along with 30% of the company’s staff. The New York-based company said Roche ended the October 2022 deal involving the HB-700 program in treating KRAS mutated cancers but did not say why the agreement fell apart. Leerink Partners analyst Andrew Berens wrote Jan. 29 that the firm spoke to management, which indicated the program was progressing according to plan and that Roche's decision was based more on its own internal pipeline strategy, lessening its focus on oncology after high profile failures vs. the program having issues in development.
Oncology company Arrivent Biopharma Inc.’s stock (NASDAQ:AVBP) shot up 11% on Jan. 26, its first day of trading, with its upsized IPO pricing 9.72 million shares at $18 each, raising gross proceeds of $175 million.
Shares of Corbus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:CRBP) doubled on opening Jan. 26 and ended the day up a whopping 249% as investors got a look at data from a first-in-human study testing next-generation Nectin-4-targeted antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) CRB-701. Licensed from CSPC Pharmaceutical Group for $7.5 million up front in February 2023, CRB-701 has IND clearance from the U.S. FDA, and Corbus plans to start its own clinical testing in the first quarter of 2024.
The first IPO of 2024 is a greatly upsized one from CG Oncology Inc., which is selling 20 million shares (NASDAQ:CGON) of its common stock at $19 each. Shares closed Jan. 25 95.6% higher at $37.17 each. The company initially had looked to raise about $200.6 million by selling its shares somewhere from $16 to $18 each but adjusted its thinking before the Jan. 25 debut, now anticipating gross proceeds of $389 million.
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