Like many others – except, as usual, for significantly more money – Moderna Therapeutics Inc. took advantage of a generous market to raise $500 million from new U.S. and international institutional investors, as well as institutional supporters already on board.
The Medicines Co.'s brisk enrollment of the confirmatory, phase III, 1,500-patient Orion-11 trial with the proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitor inclisiran not only bodes well for the firm but may say something about the already approved therapies in the class as well.
Bridgebio Pharma Inc.'s asset hunter Michael Henderson told BioWorld his firm "came a bit late in the game" when attempting to grab a phase II cancer asset that Novartis AG no longer wanted, but officials "burned some nights and weekends" to win.
Approval last week by the FDA of Novartis AG's radioactive drug, Lutathera (lutetium [177Lu] oxodotreotide), provides "a signal that there's a real opportunity for this kind of therapy, and it goes beyond neuroendocrine and prostate cancers," Endocyte Inc. CEO Mike Sherman told BioWorld.
Friday's approval of the resubmitted NDA for Lutathera (lutetium [177Lu] oxodotreotide) stands as proof that issues raised by a complete response letter (CRL) "were really on technical problems," Stefan Buono, former CEO of Advanced Accelerator Applications SA (AAA), told BioWorld.
The FDA cleared Apexian Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s IND for oncology candidate APX-3330 in three days, CEO Steve Carchedi told BioWorld, "which is probably a world record. It was, at that time, the most widely used unapproved drug," with safety data in no fewer than 422 patients already available.
With $100 million in series A money from what CEO Usman Azam called "global, visionary investors," Tmunity Therapeutics Inc. will target solid tumors as well as hematological cancers with T-cell therapies, he told BioWorld.
Now that Celgene Corp. has made its $9 billion move to take over Juno Therapeutics Inc., advancing in the ever-hot chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell space, speculation has turned to the ultimate odds of dominance, eventual sales numbers if the CD19-targeting JCAR-017 wins FDA clearance, and how that new deal fits alongside Celgene’s existing anti-B cell maturation antigen (BCMA) pact with Bluebird Bio Inc.
Piper Jaffray analyst Christopher Raymond called Sanofi SA’s takeover of Bioverativ Inc. for $11.6 billion “just what the doctor ordered” and a positive signal for the sector overall. Paris-based Sanofi disclosed early Monday that it will acquire Bioverativ by way of a tender offer expected next month for the Waltham, Mass.-based company’s outstanding shares (NASDAQ:BIVV) at $105 each – a 64 percent premium to Friday’s closing price of $62.75.
While Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. waits to hear from the FDA about its acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapy's NDA, the company is mulling the prospect of an eventual label "in newly diagnosed patients unfit for any therapy," CEO David Schenkein said, and it's ambitions of that caliber that helped the company raise $475 million in a public offering set to close Tuesday.
