PERTH, Australia – Prota Therapeutics Ltd.’s lead candidate PRT-120 induced clinical remission of peanut allergy in 51% of children in a phase IIb clinical trial. There are currently no curative therapies to treat food allergies, Prota Therapeutics CEO Mimi Tang told BioWorld. Peanut allergy in children can be particularly problematic because the only treatment is avoidance.
Janssen Pharmaceutical Cos. Inc. has become the second company to get a BCMA-targeting CAR T therapy to market with the approval of ciltacabtagene autoleucel for adults with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (MM) after four or more prior lines of therapy, including a proteasome inhibitor, an immunomodulatory agent and an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody.
Teclison Ltd. has raised $5.9 million to support further development of its lead candidate, TEC-001, an agent designed to induce tumor necrosis and enhance immune checkpoint inhibitors in solid cancers with liver metastasis. Wtt Investment Ltd., the Taiwan-based family office of the late Taiwanese banker Tsai Wan-tsai, led the financing.
Biocon Ltd. said its subsidiary Biocon Biologics Ltd. has agreed to buy out partner Viatris Inc., bringing aboard the latter’s biosimilars business, for $3.34 billion.
LONDON – Antibody-drug conjugate specialist Heidelberg Pharma AG has secured a route into Asia and a fresh injection of much-needed capital, in a licensing and equity deal with Huadong Medicine Co. Ltd. worth up to €930 million (US$1.1 billion).
Huadong Medicine Co. Ltd.’s wholly owned subsidiary Hangzhou Zhongmei Huadong Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. has acquired Asia-Pacific rights to two drugs from Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals Ltd. in a deal worth up to $662 million. “This collaboration aims to bring Kiniksa’s therapeutics to patients in the Asia Pacific Region suffering from severe autoimmune and inflammatory diseases,” said Sanj Patel, chairman and CEO of Kiniksa. “The collaboration also provides nondilutive capital, cost-sharing, and resources for clinical trials to accelerate our drug development and commercialization efforts.”
Chinese investment in U.S. companies is dropping, but Chinese biopharma firms are increasingly eyeing licensing deals on early stage inventions patented by U.S. universities, Lin Sun-Hoffman, founding partner at Liu, Chen & Hoffman LLP, said during a Feb. 24 U.S. Patent and Trademark Office webinar on biopharma patents in China.
The EU initiated a dispute complaint with the World Trade Organization over China’s intellectual property (IP) enforcement allowing Chinese courts to block infringement litigation worldwide. The Feb. 18 complaint, posted by the WTO last week, takes issue with Chinese courts issuing global injunctions barring patent holders from asserting their rights through legal proceedings in other countries until the case is settled in China.
PERTH, Australia – Biopharma stakeholders are furious about the consultation process the Australian government has pursued with its review of the country’s National Medicines Policy, and they are asking the government to hold off on making any changes until after the federal election that is scheduled for May.
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