The amount of money flowing into the biopharma industry via grants and collaborations with nonprofit and government entities is a 272% increase over last year, with efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic accounting for 84% of the total for 2020.
Thanks to Myovant Sciences GmbH’s potential $4.2 billion deal with Pfizer Inc. for recently approved Orgovyx (relugolix) in prostate cancer (PC), more physicians are going to be learning about [the compound] faster,” said chief commercial officer Adele Gulfo. “This is going to create huge demand.”
HONG KONG – With the sale of a group of noncore assets to a little-known Chinese company, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. took another step in a multibillion-dollar string of divestitures that is part of a plan to cut debt and focus on five key business areas. Takeda announced on Dec. 21 the sale of a portfolio of noncore prescription drugs marketed in China to Hasten Biopharmaceutic Co. Ltd. (China).
With record financings and now record deals in 2020, as well as a respectable value accumulated through completed mergers and acquisitions, the biopharma industry has managed to circumvent a crippling economic slowdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Skyhawk Therapeutics Inc., one of the early leaders in developing small-molecule drugs that target RNA, closed out the year with yet another big pharma partnering deal, an alliance with Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., in which it is getting $40 million up front plus up to $2.2 billion more in milestones and royalties on product sales.
Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc., a company that has until now revolved primarily around its FDA-approved acute myeloid leukemia drug, Tibsovo (ivosidenib), is selling that drug and the rest of its oncology business to Servier Pharmaceuticals LLC in a deal valued at up to $2 billion, plus royalties. The agreement includes $1.8 billion cash up front for the portfolio and as much as $200 million in regulatory milestone payments for the investigational glioma treatment vorasidenib.
LONDON – Sosei Heptares Ltd. has signed up Glaxosmithkline plc to take on the orphan G protein-coupled (GPCR) target GPR35, in a deal worth a potential $481 million.
In what could end up being a deal that tops $1 billion, Merck & Co. Inc. cut a collaboration and license agreement with Janux Therapeutics to find, develop and commercialize T cell engager immunotherapies for cancer patients.
HONG KONG – Peptidream Inc. inked a research collaboration with Amolyt Pharma SAS to test and optimize Peptidream’s growth hormone receptor antagonist (GHRA) peptides, with the aim of selecting a candidate to develop as a potential treatment for acromegaly.
By acquiring privately held Cadent Therapeutics Inc., Novartis AG gains full rights to Cadent’s allosteric modulator program, part of which the two companies began collaborating on in 2015, and all the company’s outstanding stock. Cambridge, Mass.-based Cadent will receive as much as $770 million, $210 million of it up front, plus $560 million in milestones.
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