Barely a week after cutting a deal with Beigene Ltd. that included an up-front of $45 million cash, Shoreline Biosciences Inc. and Gilead Sciences Inc.-owned Kite are collaborating to develop allogeneic cell therapies in a deal that could bring Shoreline more than $2.3 billion plus royalties.
Multinational antibody specialist Hifibio Therapeutics Inc. closed an oversubscribed $75 million series D financing round to move its anti-TNFR2 antibody HFB-200301 and the anti-OX-40 antibody HFB-301001 to phase I trials by the end of this year.
Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. has received conditional approval from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) for its oncolytic virus Delytact (teserpaturev) to treat malignant glioma.
Zai Lab Ltd. and Macrogenics Inc. have announced a collaboration and license agreement involving up to four immuno-oncology molecules in a deal potentially worth upward of $1.5 billion. The deal makes sense as both are upcoming companies at around the same stage in development – making progress in oncology with first products recently approved by regulators.
DUBLIN – Mnemo Therapeutics SAS emerged from stealth mode having raised €75 million (US$91 million) in a series A financing round to take forward a new chimeric antigen T-cell (CAR T) platform, which is focused on selectively targeting both solid and liquid tumors expressing a previously undescribed class of antigens and on improving the persistence and fitness of CAR T cells.
Umoja Biopharma Inc. has raised $210 million in a series B financing that will help it advance a pipeline of in vivo engineered CAR T-cell immunotherapies to the clinic, as well as build its internal manufacturing capabilities, it said. The Seattle-based company is focused on the treatment of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. Softbank Vision Fund 2 and Cormorant Asset Management led the financing, the third largest series B round this year, according to BioWorld data. It follows a $53 million series A round the company announced in November 2020.
Lev Becker spent about six years studying how to release neutrophile elastase from human neutrophils so it could select cancer cell types that need killing and ignore non-cancer cells. That research eventually led to a recent publication in Cell and the launch of Onchilles Pharma Inc.
The hefty $107.5 million series B financing disclosed June 10 by Synthekine Inc. underscored Wall Street’s interest in engineered cytokines, where an army of companies is developing prospects at varying stages – including Bright Peak Therapeutics Inc., which pulled down a series B in almost exactly the same amount as Synthekine, and on the same day.
Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Cilag Ltd. pharma unit has phase III data from its project combining the oral blood cancer drug Imbruvica (ibrutinib) with its blockbuster rival, Venclexta (venetoclax), in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), which could give it an edge over competitors in the space.
Iteos Therapeutics Inc. and Glaxosmithkline plc (GSK) are sharing costs for global development of the anti-TIGIT monoclonal antibody EOS-448 and plan to split the U.S. profits in a deal that brings Iteos an up-front payment of $625 million plus up to $1.45 billion in potential milestone payments.
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