LONDON – Intellia Therapeutics Inc. is to receive 10% of the equity in Sparingvision SAS as part of a deal giving the French ophthalmology specialist certain exclusive rights to in vivo CRISPR/Cas9 technologies in the treatment of ocular diseases.
In its first big pharma deal since it was founded around a cell programming technology in 2009, Immusoft Corp. signed Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. to a research collaboration and license option targeting rare inherited metabolic disorders. The agreement brings an undisclosed up-front fee and research funding to Immusoft, which is also eligible to earn more than $900 million if all options are exercised and all milestones hit.
In a deal that could be worth more than $450 million, Olix Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd. have agreed to discover, develop, and commercialize siRNA therapeutics for various liver-based targets implicated in cardiovascular, metabolic, and other indications.
Tracon Pharmaceuticals Inc. tapped Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd.’s wholly owned subsidiary, Eucure Biopharma Co. Ltd., for U.S. rights to CTLA4 antibody YH-001, which it plans to use in immunotherapy studies in combination with its PD-L1 inhibitor.
Dublin – Shares in Combigene AB, a little-known Swedish gene therapy firm, surged upward by 172% Oct. 12 on news of a preclinical licensing deal in epilepsy with Spark Therapeutics, which is potentially worth $328.5 million.
Poseida Therapeutics Inc.’s R&D Day in February – where much of its technology was made public for the first time – created “a flood of interest” in deals and officials were “pretty selective,” said CEO Eric Ostertag, whose remarks came as the company nailed down a whopping research collaboration and exclusive license agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. The arrangement will deploy Poseida’s Piggybac and Cas-CLOVER, as well as biodegradable DNA and RNA nanoparticle delivery technology and other genetic engineering platforms to come up with as many as eight gene therapies.
Supernus Pharmaceuticals Inc. CEO Jack Khattar, in disclosing his firm’s plan to acquire Adamas Pharmaceuticals Inc., said the team there has made “significant progress in redirecting” the Parkinson’s disease (PD) drug Gocovri (amantadine), but plenty more potential remains on the table with the oral selective RET kinase inhibitor.
Pacira Biosciences Inc. will add to its core non-opioid-based therapies business by buying Flexion Therapeutics Inc. for $427 million. That brings into the company’s fold Zilretta (triamcinolone acetonide extended-release injectable suspension) for treating osteoarthritis knee pain, an injectable non-opioid that’s already FDA approved in addition to being in a phase II study for treating shoulder osteoarthritis.
With a growing number of deals worth $1 billion or more, 2021 values are slowly inching past 2020’s record year, as mergers and acquisitions also move higher, indicating a potentially stronger second half of the year.
Voyager Therapeutics Inc. is getting $30 million up front in a potential $630 million gene therapy deal with Pfizer Inc., the company’s first such agreement since a strategic refocusing effort earlier this year and a much-needed endorsement of a next-generation AAV capsid platform that has shown promising though early stage data.
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