SINGAPORE – The days of blockbuster drugs may be coming to an end, but Harish Dave, chief medical officer at Singapore-based Aum Biosciences Pte. Ltd., offered companies a new term. During the second day of the Phar-East Pharma and Biotech Festival biopharma conference, Dave said companies should focus on "niche-busters" and finding new sectors to dominate instead. Read More
SINGAPORE – Several talks and forums at the recent Phar-East Pharma and Biotech Festival focused on funding and its relation to the ecosystem in Asia. Naturally, much of this discussion centered on Singapore, the host country for the event and the most developed biotech and med-tech hub in Southeast Asia. Tong Hsien-Hui, head of venture investing at SGInnovate, said it makes sense for Singapore, given its size, to build its ecosystem to focus on niches. Read More
HONG KONG – Legochem Biosciences Inc. and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. have entered into a research collaboration and license agreement to develop antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) in immuno-oncology, a follow-up to their deal in 2017 to evaluate the potential of next-generation ADC candidates based on Legochem's ADC linker and conjugation technology platform, Conjuall. (See BioWorld, Jan. 25, 2017.) Read More
Quarter after quarter, analysts have been pestering management on Biogen Inc.'s conference calls about whether there would be an interim analysis for the phase III program testing its Alzheimer's disease drug aducanumab. Read More
Hitgen Ltd., of Chengdu, China, signed a research collaboration with Almirall SA, of Barcelona, Spain, to identify novel small-molecule leads for targets of interest. Hitgen will apply its advanced technology platform, based on DNA-encoded library design, synthesis and screening, to discover leads for Almirall. Under the terms, Hitgen will receive up-front payments, and be eligible for milestone payments from Almirall, though specific financial details were not disclosed. Read More
Mesoblast Ltd., of Melbourne, Australia, appointed Joseph R. Swedish non-executive chairman of its board. Most recently he served as chairman, president and CEO of Anthem Inc. Read More
Seven new drugs launched this year are projected to achieve more than $1 billion in sales by 2023, according to a new report published by Clarivate Analytics, which owns BioWorld. Abbvie Inc.'s rheumatoid arthritis candidate, upadacitinib, and Novartis AG's Avexis-sourced gene therapy, Zolgensma (onasemnogene abeparvovec), for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) could lead the way, raking in $2 billion each, while Fibrogen Inc.'s anemia medicine, roxadustat, isn't far behind with anticipated sales of $1.97 billion in 2023. Read More
