DUBLIN – ITM Isotope Technologies Munich (ITM) SE has secured its first radiopharmaceutical licensing deal in China, a pact with Grand Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. involving two radiopharmaceutical candidates, as well as a companion diagnostic for one of them.
Antengene Corp. Ltd. received marketing approval from China’s NMPA for ATG-010 (selinexor), a drug that was in-licensed from Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc. It was approved for use in combination with dexamethasone to treat adults with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, specifically those who have received prior therapies and whose disease is refractory to at least a proteasome inhibitor, an immunomodulatory agent and an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody.
Sanofi SA is paying about $1 billion up front and pledging as much as $225 million in development milestone payments to acquire Amunix Pharmaceuticals Inc. in an arrangement that brings aboard several immuno-oncology platforms. South San Francisco-based Amunix’s lead candidate is the clinic-bound, masked T-cell engager (TCE) AMX-818, which targets HER2-expressing solid tumors. The candidate emerged from the company’s XPAT technology, designed with the longstanding XTEN and centered on a protein polymer in a strategy similar to pegylation, except with a polypeptide. XPAT stands for XTENylated, protease-activated TCEs.
Obi Pharma Inc. has acquired global rights to BSI-04702, an anti-trophoblast antigen 2 (Trop2) humanized monoclonal antibody (MAb), from Biosion Inc. Obi is granted exclusive rights for further preclinical and clinical development, registration and commercialization of the candidate as an antibody-drug conjugate and other derivative products.
PERTH, Australia – The FDA has given the green light to Telix Pharmaceuticals Ltd.’s lead radiopharmaceutical imaging agent, Illuccix, for prostate cancer. Illuccix is a kit for the preparation of gallium-68 (68Ga) prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) 11 for imaging prostate cancer with positron emission tomography (PET). It targets PSMA, a protein that is overexpressed on the surface of more than 90% of primary and metastatic prostate cancer cells.
Novartis AG has forged even stronger links with Beigene Ltd., taking an option on the latter’s late-stage TIGIT inhibitor cancer immunotherapy ociperlimab in a deal worth up to $1 billion. Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis will pay the Beijing-based pharma $300 million up front in the option, collaboration and license agreement plus up to $700 million if it exercises its option before late 2023.
Anheart Therapeutics Co. Ltd. raised $61 million in a series B round to support the development of a slate of precision oncology pipeline in-licensed by the company from Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. Toward that end, funds will support phase II testing of the Hangzhou, China-based firm’s lead asset, the ROS1 inhibitor taletrectinib, for the potential treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer.
DUBLIN – Anaveon AG raised CHF110 million (US$119.5 million) in a series B round to accelerate development of its interleukin-2 (IL-2) agonist ANV-419, which is currently undergoing a phase I/II trial. “We are putting our compound into multiple clinical trials and multiple indications in parallel,” CEO and co-founder Andreas Katopodis told BioWorld.
DUBLIN – Fans of “His Dark Materials” and the “Book of Dust,” Philip Pullman’s series of fantasy novels set in Oxford, U.K. and more remote corners of the earth, are familiar with alethiometers. In the hands of a highly select number of characters, these complex, compass-like devices can interrogate a mysterious substance called “dust” – an elementary particle associated with consciousness – and provide trusted answers to the most crucial questions.
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