About 17 months after emerging from stealth with its Trueglue discovery platform, Magnet Biomedicine Inc. has joined with Eli Lilly and Co. to discover, develop and commercialize molecular glue therapeutics for oncology. “It’s a really important deal, especially given the discovery of Trueglues is something Magnet is pioneering,” CEO Brian Safina told BioWorld. The deal includes $40 million in up-front and near-term payments, including an equity investment, as well as potential milestone payments, bringing the deal total to more than $1.25 billion, plus tiered royalties.
The prospects of an oral obesity candidate used as a monotherapy or combination therapy is in question after Kallyope Inc. posted disappointing phase II data on a government website, indicating that its lead candidate, K-757, failed to meet all endpoints.
Nearly four years after signing its first major partnership with Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Bridgene Biosciences Inc. returned for a second deal with Takeda – this time focused on using its chemoproteomics platform to discover novel small molecules against immunology and neurology targets.
Septerna Inc.’s stock plunged as much as 68% throughout the day Feb. 18 on news that the company was stopping a phase I trial of SEP-786 in healthy volunteers following two severe events of elevated unconjugated bilirubin in the highest dose cohort of the multiple ascending-dose portion of the study.
Becoming the second drug approved by the U.S. FDA for tenosynovial giant cell tumors, Deciphera Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s oral CSF1R inhibitor vimseltinib, newly branded Romvimza, could take significant market share from a competitor in the same class. A phase III trial showed a higher objective response rate with Romvimza than a separate phase III trial showed with Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd.’s Turalio (pexidartinib), and the latter’s label contains a boxed warning on rare but serious and sometimes life-threatening liver side effects.
Amid an overall positive earnings report of $3.2 billion in 2024 revenues, Moderna Inc. disclosed that the U.S. FDA placed its norovirus vaccine on a phase III clinical hold due to a single adverse event of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS).
While first-generation glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists have clearly taken the obesity market by storm, generating billions of dollars for Novo Nordisk A/S and Eli Lilly and Co., several other companies are developing follow-on products that could clean up the tolerability and adherence issues of Wegovy (semaglutide) and Zepbound (tirzepatide).
The fast pace in which the Trump administration has rolled out changes to how government and businesses operate – a disruptive effort that appears to be creating a new world order – has caught the attention of biopharma industry leaders who spoke Tuesday at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization’s CEO and Investor Conference in New York.
Cognition Therapeutics Inc. evolved from the work of a neuroscientist and a chemist working in the San Francisco Bay area, seeking out targets to block the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. Since the company’s 2007 inception, it has received close to $200 million in U.S. NIH grant funding. Investors often tell CEO Lisa Ricciardi, who joined the company in 2020: “’That’s because you have a relationship with the FDA.’ Well, no. It’s because it’s competitive” and the company’s research has met the muster. “You have to apply two or three times. … It’s with rigor that these results are generated and that we’re able to get more funding.”
