With its Altix AI.i launch, GE Healthcare Technologies Inc. aims to upgrade the user experience and efficiency of its catheterization lab and electrophysiology procedures. The new capabilities apply to the Cardiolab, Mac-Lab and Combolab products. The Alitx Ai.i software upgrades received U.S. FDA clearance in December. CE mark is pending.
Alteogen Inc. signed its first billion-dollar partnership this year for ALT-B4 technology through two separate contracts with Astrazeneca plc’s U.K.- and U.S.-based Medimmune subsidiaries worth up to $1.35 billion combined.
Term sheets are being drawn up with potential pharma partners after Torqur AG reported positive interim results from an ongoing phase II trial of bimiralisib topical gel in the treatment of actinic keratosis.
Bristol Myers Squibb Co.’s decision this week to snag Bluebird Bio Inc. spinout 2seventy Bio Inc. for $102 million net – just weeks after investors bid $30 million for Bluebird itself – seemed to place a final blow on what was once a promising gene therapy company. The space in general has struggled to make business sense out of the one-time therapies that often involve complicated manufacturing and exorbitant prices, despite the life-changing value that gene therapies bring to patients. But despite some recent setbacks, biopharmas continue to plow forward with promising research in the field.
The European Association of Medical Device Notified Bodies, also known as Team NB, has proposed the issuance of a conditional CE certificate for medical devices and in vitro diagnostics, a concept said to have existed in the legacy regulations as well. The question for industry is whether this mechanism can be used to aid in the backlog of devices under the Medical Device Regulation (MDR), a problem that is still front and center in the EU eight years after passage of the index legislation.
The pairing of Mallinckrodt plc and Endo Inc. is expected to create a pharma heavyweight that will generate $3.6 billion in 2025 revenue after the duo combines their generic pharmaceuticals businesses and Endo’s sterile injectables setup. Terms call for Dublin-based Endo shareholders to collect $80 million in cash and own 49.9% of the combined firm. Owners of stock in Mallinckrodt will hold the rest of the new entity in the arrangement, which bears an enterprise value of $6.7 billion and is expected to close in the second half of this year.
Celltrion Inc. is on a biosimilar roll with the U.S. FDA this month, having gained clearance of Stoboclo and Osenvelt as products referencing Amgen Inc.’s biologic, denosumab (Prolia, Xgeva), along with Omlyclo becoming the first and only interchangeable biosimilar to omalizumab (Xolair, Genentech Inc. and Novartis AG).
In what it says is the biggest obesity deal to date, Zealand Pharma A/S has signed up Roche AG to a potential $5.3 billion global collaboration and license agreement to develop petrelintide, an amylin analog that is currently in phase IIb development. The two companies will co-develop and co-commercialize petrelintide and combination products, including a fixed-dose combination of petrelintide and CT-388, Roche’s dual GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist.
Neuromod Devices Ltd. raised €10 million (US$10.9 million) in financing to expand the reach of Lenire, which treats tinnitus. The fundraise, which was an expansion of its series B financing round, was led by existing investors Fountain Healthcare Partners and Panakès Partners.
A new multi-omics approach to unpicking how noncoding gene variants influence the development of common chronic diseases has identified tens of thousands of instances where variants have an impact on gene expression levels and gene splicing, the post-transcriptional modification that allows one gene to code for multiple proteins.