Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s potential $665 million deal for Oscotec Inc.’s cevidoplenib, a phase III-ready oral SYK inhibitor to treat immune thrombocytopenia, marks a new chapter of development focused on cancer therapy resistance for Oscotec, CEO Yoon Tae-young said.
Cytomx Therapeutics Inc. and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., which inked a bispecifics-focused collaboration worth up to $2 billion in 2022, agreed to broaden their efforts in an expanded deal that provides Cytomx with additional funding up front as it advances its promising colorectal cancer candidate, varsetatug masetecan (Varseta-M), and fills the gap left by the recently terminated agreement with Astellas Pharma Inc.
Once again, Eli Lilly and Co. has signed a billion-dollar deal, this time with Boston-based Ascidian Therapeutics Inc., a company that is barely four years old and one that is focused on treating human diseases by rewriting RNA. “Our technology, we call it RNA exon editing,” said Ascidian Chief Scientific Officer Robert Bell. “It edits RNA, not DNA … but it does so at the kilobase scale.”