LONDON – Bridgebio Inc. has made a huge turn on the initial $65 million it invested in 2018 to acquire rights to infigratinib from Novartis AG, sealing a $2 billion commercialization deal with Swiss oncology specialist Helsinn Group for the fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) inhibitor just four years later. Helsinn will work with Bridgebio affiliate QED Therapeutics Inc. on U.S. co-commercialization of infigratinib in oncology and all other indications apart from skeletal dysplasias, with profits and losses shared on a 50-50 basis.
Charlene Liao, Immune-Onc Therapeutics Inc.’s CEO told BioWorld she has a solid plan for using the company’s new $73 million series B1 and B2 financing. “It is time to go beyond T cells and to consider myeloid checkpoints as the next wave of cancer immunotherapies,” she said. Immune-Onc will use the funding to target myeloid checkpoints, especially leukocyte immunoglobulin-like receptor subfamily B, as it continues to develop its blood cancer and solid tumor therapies.
Pyxis Oncology Inc., a company building a portfolio of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and immunotherapies for cancer, has closed a $152 million series B financing co-led by Arix Bioscience and RTW Investments LP. The fresh funds will help the company advance multiple ADC candidates in-licensed from Pfizer Inc. and Legochem Biosciences Inc. as well as its discovery-stage pipeline, CEO Lara Sullivan told BioWorld. The ADCs are expected to move to the clinic in 2022.
The first BCMA-targeted CAR T therapy, idecabtagene vicleucel, cleared FDA approval for use in adults with multiple myeloma (MM) who have received four or more prior lines of therapy. Developed by partners Bluebird Bio Inc. and Bristol Myers Squibb Co., the drug, branded Abecma, is also the first CAR T drug indicated for MM. It is designed for use as a one-time infusion, with a recommended dose range of 300 to 460 x 106 CAR-positive T cells. The personalized therapy will be produced at BMS’ cellular manufacturing facility in Summit, N.J. Bluebird developed the lentiviral vector used in Abecma.
HONG KONG – Eisai Co. Ltd. has received not one, but two approvals from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), for its anticancer agent Remitoro (denileukin diftitox) and multiple receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor Lenvima (lenvatinib mesylate). Both approvals, each for a rare disease indication, were granted based on phase II trial results, instead after the usual phase III trials.
Suzhou-China based Cstone Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., which in-licensed RET inhibitor pralsetinib from Blueprint Medicines Corp. in 2018, has won Chinese approval for the drug to treat adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic RET fusion-positive non-small-cell lung cancer after platinum-based chemotherapy. Already approved as Gavreto in the U.S., the drug is Cstone’s first product approved in China and the country’s first selective RET inhibitor.
According to the BioWorld Cancer Financings Report, 2020 proved to be a record year in terms of capital raised by biopharmaceutical companies working on therapeutics for cancer indications.
DUBLIN – Step Pharma SAS closed a €35 million (US$41.5 million) series B round to move its first-in-class cytidine triphosphate synthase 1 inhibitor into clinical trials in patients with T-cell and B-cell malignancies.
Asher Biotherapeutics Inc. raised $55 million in a series A financing round to take forward a series of engineered cytokines designed to selectively activate T cells or other immune effector cells, in order to eliminate both the toxicities and the loss of efficacy that can result from indiscriminate activation.
HONG KONG - Bispecific antibody startup Epimab Biotherapeutics Inc. has completed a $120 million series C financing, bringing it closer to a potential IPO next year. The Shanghai-based company said the new funds would help it move its EGFR/cMET-targeted bispecific candidate, EMB-01, into phase II testing this year, as well supporting the advancement of other clinical candidates and an expansion of its pipeline.
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