No desert for offers: Arrakis waited for right partner in multibillion-dollar Roche deal
Arrakis Therapeutics Inc.’s CEO, Michael Gilman, knew his 3-year-old company had a partnering tiger by the tail just by the amount of interest from companies who wanted to partner. He sat back and waited until the right offer came along and went with Roche Holding AG. The result is a massive collaboration and license agreement that could stretch into the billions of dollars. “We very deliberately stayed out of partnering discussions for the first couple years,” Gilman told BioWorld. “It took a while to figure out how to do this. We wanted to understand what we had before selling off parts of it.”

No desert for offers: Arrakis waited for right partner in multibillion-dollar Roche deal
Arrakis Therapeutics Inc.’s CEO, Michael Gilman, knew his 3-year-old company had a partnering tiger by the tail just by the amount of interest from companies who wanted to partner. He sat back and waited until the right offer came along and went with Roche Holding AG. The result is a massive collaboration and license agreement that could stretch into the billions of dollars. “We very deliberately stayed out of partnering discussions for the first couple years,” Gilman told BioWorld. “It took a while to figure out how to do this. We wanted to understand what we had before selling off parts of it.”
Remegen pockets $100M in private funding to advance lupus drug
BEIJING – China, Yantai-based biologics maker Remegen Ltd. has raised about $100 million in a private round led by Lilly Asia Ventures and Lake Bleu Capital to advance its autoimmune, oncology and ophthalmology drug candidates, especially its NDA-stage RC-18 (telitacicept) for system lupus erythematosus (SLE).
Today's news in brief
BioWorld briefs for April 8.
Excess testing capacity essential for next pandemic, but cost question not yet answered
There will be lessons learned aplenty when the COVID-19 pandemic finally breaks, including how serological and molecular testing can be used to maximum effect to corral a future pandemic. Carmen Wiley, president of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry, told BioWorld that the existing instrument types are up to the job, but that surge capacity is needed, and that it is not clear how the cost of that capacity will be handled.
Zulresso flag at half-staff, Sage’s oral argument in PPD still flies
Sage Therapeutics Inc.’s chief business officer, Michael Cloonan, said the firm is “not going to give details around the geographies and the number of sites” that will continue to use Zulresso (brexanolone) for postpartum depression (PPD) after the restructuring of the Cambridge, Mass.-based firm.
Novavax coronavirus vaccine, Bellerophon COVID-19 therapy near phase I
Novavax Inc., one of the first biopharma companies to reveal its efforts to develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in January, has identified a prefusion protein for testing in an Australian phase I trial, slated to start in mid-May.
Ferrari, ERC part ways after only months, dispute over COVID-19 response
LONDON – An unseemly row has broken out at the heart of EU science, with Mauro Ferrari, head of the European Research Council (ERC), accusing the European Commission of failing to coordinate and fund R&D needed to combat COVID-19.

Analysis and data insight

Biopharma deals and M&As down slightly, but respectable showing despite pandemic
Deals and M&A
With nearly a quarter of the activity announced in March focused on COVID-19, the first quarter of 2020 appears to be on target to beat the deal and M&A values of two of the last three years, although it remains behind 2019. Despite the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, let alone the...
Biopharmas keep cash rolling in despite decline in financial markets
Private
Although public offerings slowed considerably in March as a result of the steepest stock market declines in history during that period, global biopharmaceutical companies managed to collectively generate just over $16 billion in the first quarter from a record number public and private...
Week in review for March 30-April 3, 2020: Coronavirus pandemic could shorten cash runways, derail clinical trials
Coronavirus
A quick look back at top stories.
Money raised by biopharma: 2020 vs. 2019
Total raised in public, private and other financings of biopharma companies, comparing 2020 vs. 2019.

Financings

Deerfield Management raises $840M for health care venture fund
Coronavirus
New York-based Deerfield Management Co. has secured $840 million for a new venture capital fund to support innovations in biotechnology, medical technologies and digital health. James Flynn, managing partner of Deerfield, said roughly half of the fund will focus on early-stage therapeutic R&D, much of that coming from academic partnerships. The remainder will be used to back companies developing novel advances in med-tech interventions, diagnostics and digital health.

Science

Death, taxes and zoonotic spillover
Infection
“In any crisis, leaders have two equally important responsibilities: solve the immediate problem and keep it from happening again... The first point is more pressing, but the second has crucial long-term consequences.” So wrote Bill Gates in a February editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine...

Bench Press for April 3, 2020
BioWorld looks at translational medicine, including: Microbiome changes precede tumor development in CRC; Converting catch and release to PARP traps; Smart bacterium senses environment; The dose makes the poison – timing, too; Minimal phenotyping gives minimal insights into MDD genetics; Hypoxia...
Accelerated by COVID-19, science changes will outlast pandemic
Coronavirus
COVID-19 has disrupted science in the way it has disrupted everything else. In the short term, universities have largely closed shop as a way to maximize social distancing, and lots of science – or at least, lots of bench work – is not getting done.

Newco news

Startup Amphista raises $7.5M in series A for targeted protein degradation efforts
Cancer
LONDON – Amphista Ltd. becomes the latest to join the growing band of proteolysis targeting chimera (Protac) specialists, arriving on the scene with a $7.5 million series A and what it says is a new approach to targeted protein degradation (TPD).
Montis looking to exploit rather than inhibit tumor vasculature to target cancer
Cancer
LONDON – A founding father of anti-angiogenesis therapy, Peter Carmeliet is turning his previous work on its head in new research which indicates that rather than destroying tumor vasculature, it should be piggy-backed as a means to recruit immune cells to a tumor.
Nineteengale is born, a spinout of Neurotheryx and Cyclica
Artificial intelligence
Nineteengale Therapeutics is a new joint venture that was launched to fill a large void. Cyclica Inc., along with its partner, Neurotheryx Canada Ltd., both of Toronto, created Nineteengale to find and develop cannabinoid-inspired drugs for bipolar disorder, anxiety and pain management.
Aligos tackles hepatitis B with combo approach, three drugs entering clinic this year
Infection
Lessons learned from development of hepatitis C therapies could be applied to the underserved hepatitis B population, potentially leading to a functional cure through a combination of optimized drugs that attack the virus from different angles. That is the mission of 2-year-old Aligos Therapeutics Inc., a South San Francisco-based startup focused on liver-related diseases.
Ethismos eyes the clinic with its $50M placement
Neurology/Psychiatric
Tony McKinney, the founder and CEO of Ethismos Research Inc., has worked with the small molecule he plans to take into the clinic this year for the past 10 years. All the while he’s used the same support group of personnel to develop the molecule. Sometimes that group works and sometimes it’s on hiatus.

U.S.

Drug shortages worsen in gnarl of regulatory, logistics tangles
Drugs
As the demand increases for ventilators to treat Americans with severe symptoms of COVID-19, another shortage is being exacerbated – a shortage of the drugs needed to treat patients on ventilators.

Europe

U.K. research sees ‘substantial’ cuts to charity-funded research due to COVID-19
Research
LONDON – COVID-19 is posing a real threat to the viability of medical charities in the U.K., which collectively fund 17,000 scientists and invest more than £1.3 billion (US$1.6 billion) per annum in research.

Conferences go virtual, postpone, as COVID-19 spreads and Bio-Europe Spring wraps up
Conferences
The five-day Bio-Europe Spring 2020 conference, possibly the first ever life sciences partnering event staged in an all-virtual format, ended on Friday, March 27, with high hopes that the industry would return to face-to-face interactions next year in Barcelona.
Closing panel offers COVID-19 lessons to learn from China
Conferences
Biopharma industry leaders in China who were the first to experience the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic shared their thoughts during a closing plenary session of the virtual Bio-Europe Spring 2020 meeting.

Clinical

Pluristem sees positive signs in preliminary COVID-19 test
Coronavirus
Pluristem Therapeutics Inc., an Israeli regenerative medicine company, said several of the seven COVID-19 patients treated with its allogeneic placental expanded (PLX) cells have progressed from suffering severe symptoms of the disease to signs of clinical recovery, including respiratory improvements.
Millendo quits Prader-Willi syndrome program after pivotal miss
Obesity
Shares of Millendo Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:MLND) fell 70.1% to $1.45 on April 6 after a pivotal study of its experimental Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) therapy, livoletide, failed to show a statistically significant improvement in hyperphagia, or insatiable hunger, and food-related behaviors vs. placebo.
In a second successful phase III, Axsome’s oral migraine treatment hits primary endpoints
Neurology/Psychiatric
With positive top-line data reported for Axsome Therapeutics Inc.’s oral migraine candidate, AXS-07, in its INTERCEPT trial, the company and the candidate have notched two successful phase III trials in little more than three months.
Menlo's serlopitant whiffs in two phase III studies
Dermatologic
Menlo Therapeutics Inc. announced a double dose of bad news with negative results for two phase III trials testing its NK1 receptor antagonist, serlopitant, as a treatment for pruritus (itch) associated with prurigo nodularis, a skin disease characterized by hard, itchy nodules.
Immunomedics stock soars as efficacy signal prompts early halt of phase III TNBC trial
Cancer
DUBLIN – Immunomedics Inc. is stopping the phase III Ascent trial of its antibody-drug conjugate, sacituzumab govitecan, in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) on the unanimous recommendation of the study’s independent data safety monitoring committee, after a scheduled look at the study data uncovered what the company called “compelling efficacy.”
Izana’s namilumab joins testing for COVID-19 arsenal as data point to GM-CSF as target for severe disease
Drugs
LONDON – Izana Bioscience Ltd. has become the third company to supply an anti-GM-CSF antibody for compassionate use against COVID-19, announcing namilumab, currently in phase IIb testing in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, will be used to treat 20 patients with severe respiratory symptoms.

BioWorld Perspectives

A decade of incentives to promote antibiotic development and still no viable route to commercial success
It should be motoring to profitability, but nine months after the U.S. launch of its new antibiotic, Zemdri (plazomicin), Achaogen Inc. has filed for...
BioWorld's Top 10: Biggest newsmakers and trending stories of 2018
BioWorld
In many ways, 2018 resembled the previous year in fast motion. Political turmoil accelerated on both sides of the Atlantic, with Asia swept into the fold,...
Deck the halls, or get decked out: BioWorld’s 12th annual Holiday Gift Guide
BioWorld
The holidays are (already) here again. Much as we try to push back the calendar, those Thanksgiving doorbuster, Black Friday blowout, Small Business...
Price increases - tone deaf or defiant?
BioWorld
Defying the laws of nature, many drug companies seem intent on proving that what goes up doesn’t have to come down. For them, the sky’s the limit when it...
PABNAB – A disappointing distraction at BIO, not associated with BIO
BioWorld
On what planet are the PABNAB (Party at BIO not associated with BIO) organizers living to think it was acceptable to spotlight topless dancers with company...
Shoes, ‘Stones’ and surfing: BioWorld’s 12th annual Summer Reading List
BioWorld
Summer arrives with a bang for biopharma in the dueling agendas of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, the BIO International...
If no one reads it, what’s the purpose of a drug label?
BioWorld
Robert Califf said it when he was serving as FDA commissioner. Patient advocates have said it when testifying before Congress or commenting at public...

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