SAN FRANCISCO – Guardant Health Inc. has set the standard for liquid biopsy. That success has catapulted the Redwood City, Calif.-based company from an IPO in the fall of 2018 to a current valuation in excess of $7 billion. It has made its name – and much of its revenue – with its Guardant360 test, a molecular diagnostic test that assesses 74 cancer-related genes from the circulating tumor DNA to aid in designing the best treatment for advanced cancer patients with solid tumors.
Adaptimmune plc continued its bright start to the year by entering an alliance worth up to $897.5 million with Astellas Pharma Inc. to co-develop and co-commercialize stem cell-based allogeneic CAR T and T-cell receptor (TCR) cell therapies.
SAN DIEGO – Allele-specific KRAS inhibitors are “the most exciting change coming down the pike for treating KRAS-mutant tumors in the near future,” Ferdinandos Skoulidis said at the sixth joint conference by the American Association for Cancer Research and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer meeting.
While companies have seen plenty of success treating blood cancers with T-cell therapies, solid tumors have largely remained the holy grail for T cells. But Adaptimmune Therapeutics plc has early data from its Specific Peptide Enhanced Affinity Receptor T-cell platform suggesting it may be on the right path for a platform with a wide breadth.
BEIJING – China-based Innovent Biologics Inc. will need to get on two new tasks this year: Preparing for the first clinical trial for an anti-TIGIT antibody in China and investigating the combination therapy of its PD-1 antibody, Tyvyt (sintilimab), and Sirnaomics Inc.’s RNAi drug candidate, STP-705.
Ten days after its JAK1 inhibitor, itacitinib, failed a phase III trial in acute graft-vs.-host-disease (GVHD), Incyte Corp. has finalized a deal that could provide an alternative growth path. It is paying Morphosys AG $750 million up front, investing $150 million in its stock and is on the hook for up to $1.1 billion in milestones for a 50% interest in U.S. rights to the CD19-targeting antibody tafasitamab (MOR-208) and for 100% of the rights in all other territories.
Cambridge, Mass.-based Blueprint Medicines Corp.’s price tag and label for Ayvakit (avapritinib) caused some chagrin on Wall Street as observers continued to weigh the drug’s odds against ripretinib, the competing drug for which Deciphera Pharmaceuticals Inc. awaits regulatory action.
BEIJING – China-U.S. biotech Transcenta Holding Ltd., headquartered in Shanghai and Boston, completed a series B+ financing round to secure $100 million to continue its efforts in developing oncology and bone disorder drugs and to prepare for an IPO.
NBE Therapeutics AG raised $22 million in a series C round to take its first antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), NBE-002, into the clinic. NBE-002, which targets receptor tyrosine kinase-like orphan receptor 1 (ROR1), is in development for both solid tumors and lymphomas
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