Korean bioventure GI Innovation Inc. inched closer to achieving its goal of “five tech transfer deals in five years” with another licensing deal for its allergy drug, GI-301, with Japan-based Maruho Co. Ltd. for ₩298 billion (US$220.7 million), although share prices still dropped on the news.
Nkarta Inc. is looking to return to the heady heights it hit three years ago when its shares were going for around $70 each. The company is reinventing itself as a cancer fighter and branching out as an autoimmune specialist. Nkarta joins at least four other companies looking at expanding their cell therapies into other autoimmune indications.
Astria Therapeutics Inc.’s potential $320 million deal with Ichnos Sciences Inc. to bring aboard an OX40 portfolio for atopic dermatitis puts the firm in line to compete with big pharma, which is trying – at a much later stage – the same mechanism of action.
Scientists at Egenesis Inc. have transplanted kidneys from genome-edited pigs into cynomolgus monkeys that remained functional for long periods after transplantation. The monkeys, whose own kidneys were removed during the surgery, survived for a median of 176 days after receiving one pig kidney. Maximal survival was just over 2 years. The data were published today in Nature. Egenesis CEO Mike Curtis told reporters that the study has achieved the longest survival to date “using clinically translatable immunosuppression … longer survival has been achieved using really aggressive immunosuppression that really isn’t clinically translatable.”
Qyuns Therapeutics Co. Ltd. has filed to list on the Hong Kong Exchange to fund its autoimmune and allergic disease therapy pipeline, including lead assets QX-002N for ankylosing spondylitis and QX-005N for multiple indications including atopic dermatitis.
There are several pan-PIM kinase inhibitors in development for cancer indications, but startup Mysthera Therapeutics AG hopes to become the first biotech company to develop them in the autoimmune diseases space, having secured $3.5 million in seed capital from founding investor Forty51 Ventures.
With Tofidence (tocilizumab-bavi), a monoclonal antibody from Biogen Inc., the U.S. FDA has approved the first biosimilar to the Roche Group AG’s Actemra (tocilizumab), a blockbuster with declining numbers. Tofidence was greenlighted Sept. 29 for treating rheumatoid arthritis in adults, and for treating polyarticular and systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis in those ages 2 and older. It’s also the first biosimilar approved to treat systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis.
Immunovant Inc. is seeking a $450 million windfall on the back of the “best-in-class potential” of its early stage monoclonal antibody for IgG-mediated autoimmune diseases, IMVT-1402, which a phase I readout demonstrated could supersede the firm’s lead, batoclimab.
Aboleris Pharma has closed a €27.3 million (US$28.7 million) series A financing, funds it plans to put toward progressing into the clinic a monoclonal antibody against a novel T-cell target with “first-in-class potential” to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The Gosselies, Belgium-based company’s antibody, ABO-21009, is designed to “rebalance” the immune system by inhibiting CD45RC, a protein expressed on the surface of a subset of disease-causing T cells.
Arialys Therapeutics Inc. launched this month with $58 million in seed funding, an experimental compound it is developing for autoimmune encephalitis and autoimmune psychosis, and high aspirations for its field. “Yes, I want to treat these patients, I want these patients to have a better life. But I also want drug discovery and development folks to think differently about discovering new drugs for the CNS,” Jay Lichter told BioWorld.
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