DUBLIN – Without particularly looking for a deal, immunometabolism specialist Sitryx Ltd. landed quite a large one – a licensing agreement in autoimmune disease with Eli Lilly and Co. involving up to four preclinical programs, for which it is receiving $50 million up front, $10 million as equity investment and up to $820 million in development milestones. Read More
Akero Therapeutics Inc. rolled out stellar non-COVID-19 (for a change) clinical news with long-acting fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) analogue AKR-001 in biopsy-confirmed nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), but even in liver disease the pandemic became part of the discussion. Read More
After plunging dramatically at the beginning of the month, biopharmaceutical equities appear to be recovering some of the valuation they originally lost when the financial markets cratered. As the curtain closed on a very turbulent month that most investors will want to forget, the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical index finished up 0.75%, but down about 2% for the year. Read More
A U.S. district court in Nevada ruled in favor of two ANDA filers in Amarin Corp. plc.’s patent litigation case regarding its fish oil cardiovascular therapy franchise, Vascepa (icosapent ethyl), increasing the possibility of generics crowding Amarin’s U.S. sales. Read More
LONDON – AM-Pharma BV raised a further $52 million for the phase III trial of its recombinant alkaline phosphatase product, Recap, in treating sepsis-associated acute kidney injury (AKI), but now faces a delay in starting the study, as the COVID-19 crisis takes up more and more clinical resources. Read More
BEIJING – Osaka-based Japanese infectious disease specialist Shionogi & Co. Ltd. said it will partner with Chinese insurance giant Ping An to establish a data-driven joint venture to develop new drugs in a deal involving ¥33.53 billion (US$311 million). It also plans to tap into immuno-oncology to address the patent cliff of its HIV drugs. Under the terms, the Japanese pharma will sell a 2.05% voting stake, or 6.35 million shares of its common stock, to Ping An for ¥33.53 billion. Shionogi will own 51% of the joint venture while Ping An owns 49%, Shionogi IR group manager Kunihiro Mera told BioWorld. Read More
LONDON – Two papers published online in Nature following accelerated peer review provide fine detail of how the spike protein on the COVID-19 coronavirus binds to the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) through which it infects its human host. Read More
New and updated preclinical and clinical data presented by biopharma firms at the American College of Cardiology’s 69th Annual Scientific Session Together with World Congress of Cardiology (ACC.20/WCC Virtual), including: Amarin, Mesoblast, Resverlogix. Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: AB Science, Agios, Astrazeneca, Bluebird, BMS, Cytodyn, Essa, GW, Intellia, Takeda, Zealand. Read More
