Akcea’s top 3 C-suite execs are chopped out as Ionis sends in an interim quarterback from their bench

September 23, 2019 07:50 AM EDTUpdated 09:51 AM

John Carroll

Akcea’s top 3 C-suite execs are chopped out as Ionis sends in an interim quarterback from their bench

The top 3 execs running Ionis’ majority-owned spinoff Akcea are hitting the exit in a surprise twist Monday morning.

Akcea $AKCA reported this morning that CEO Paula Soteropoulos, President Sarah Boyce and COO Jeffrey Goldberg are out in a clean sweep. The board has placed Damien McDevitt — the chief business officer on the mother ship — in the interim chief executive spot as they hunt for some permanent replacements. Michael J. Yang and Joseph ‘Skip’ Klein III, meanwhile have joined the company’s board of directors,

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 67,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Development of the Next Generation NKG2D CAR T-cell Manufacturing Process

Celyad’s view on developing and delivering a CAR T-cell therapy with multi-tumor specificity combined with cell manufacturing success
Overview
Transitioning potential therapeutic assets from academia into the commercial environment is an exercise that is largely underappreciated by stakeholders, except for drug developers themselves. The promise of preclinical or early clinical results drives enthusiasm, but the pragmatic delivery of a therapy outside of small, local testing is most often a major challenge for drug developers especially, including among other things, the manufacturing challenges that surround the production of just-in-time and personalized autologous cell therapy products.

Paul Hudson, Getty Images

December 9, 2019 05:27 PM ESTUpdated 10 minutes ago

John Carroll

R&D

UPDATED: Sanofi CEO Hudson lays out new R&D focus — chopping diabetes, cardio and slashing $2B-plus costs in surgical dissection

Earlier on Monday, new Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson baited the hook on his upcoming strategy presentation Tuesday with a tell-tale deal to buy Synthorx for $2.5 billion. That fits squarely with hints that he’s pointing the company to a bigger future in oncology, which also squares with a major industry tilt.

In a big reveal later in the day, though, Hudson offered a slate of stunners on his plans to surgically dissect and reassemble the portfoloio, saying that the company is dropping cardio and diabetes research — which covers two of its biggest franchise arenas. Sanofi missed the boat on developing new diabetes drugs, and now it’s pulling out entirely. As part of the pullback, it’s dropping efpeglenatide, their once-weekly GLP-1 injection for diabetes.

“To be out of cardiovascular and diabetes is not easy for a company like ours with an incredibly proud history,” Hudson said on a call with reporters, according to the Wall Street Journal. “As tough a choice as that is, we’re making that choice.”

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 67,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

December 10, 2019 08:03 AM ESTUpdated 08:17 AM

Jason Mast

R&D

Inscripta pushes funding to $260 million as they launch genome editing platform

Inscripta presentations can begin with the advent of agriculture. Or even further back: The emergence of man.

“We’ve come a long way, starting with natural selection,” Inscripta microbial director Nandini Krishnamurthy told a session this year at SynBioBeta, the new annual conference for the synthetic biology field.

Behind her was a slide that’s recurred in company presentations, showing from left to right across the bottom the classic evolution-of-man chart (the ‘humorous’ kind that ends on an overweight soda-drinker), a picture showing the development of corn from thin strand to bulbous Iowan, and then a squiggly protein close-up of “directed evolution.” Below that runs an arrow and a ticker of how long each takes, from 10^9 years to 1.

ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Associate Director, Regulatory Affairs

Cold Genesys, Inc.

Irvine, CA

view job offer post your job now

Roger Perlmutter, Merck

December 9, 2019 07:10 AM ESTUpdated 03:45 PM

John Carroll

R&D

#ASH19: Here’s why Merck is paying $2.7B today to grab ArQule and its next-gen BTK drug, lining up Eli Lilly rivalry

Just a few months after making a splash at the European Hematology Association scientific confab with an early snapshot of positive data for their BTK inhibitor ARQ 531, ArQule has won a $2.7 billion buyout deal from Merck.

Merck is scooping up a next-gen BTK drug — which is making a splash at ASH today — from ArQule in an M&A pact set at $20 a share $ARQL. That’s more than twice Friday’s $9.66 close. And Merck R&D chief Roger Perlmutter heralded a deal that nets “multiple clinical-stage oral kinase inhibitors.”

This is the second biotech buyout pact today, marking a brisk tempo of M&A deals in the lead-up to the big JP Morgan gathering in mid-January. It’s no surprise the acquisitions are both for cancer drugs, where Sanofi will try to make its mark while Merck beefs up a stellar oncology franchise. And bolt-ons are all the rage at the major pharma players, which you could also see in Novartis’ recent $9.7 billion MedCo buyout.

ArQule — which comes out on top after their original lead drug foundered in Phase III — highlighted early data on ‘531 at EHA from a group of 6 chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients who got the 65 mg dose. Four of them experienced a partial response — a big advance for a company that failed with earlier attempts.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 67,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

December 10, 2019 07:18 AM EST

Natalie Grover

Pharma

Republicans unveil a drug price bill to rival the Democrats — promising lower prices and more cures

Nancy Pelosi unveiled the Democrats’ drug pricing bill back in September and brought the fight straight to the industry with a proposal to empower the US government to negotiate prices for select drugs. Republicans, who decried the bill reeks of heavy-handed government intervention which will stifle innovation, now have a counterproposal they claim will result in cheaper drugs and incentivize R&D — further clouding the prospects of a bipartisan compromise that could land on Donald Trump’s desk.

Chris Garabedian. Perceptive

December 10, 2019 06:59 AM ESTUpdated 08:17 AM

John Carroll

Startups

Venture

Perceptive teams up with Chris Garabedian to open up a new, $210M biotech fund focused on A rounds

Perceptive Advisors is one of those prolific biotech investor groups which has traditionally enjoyed zeroing in on clinical-stage investments and crossover rounds, a group that prefers more established drug development players with near-term payoff potential.

But now they’re partnering with Xontogeny chief and longtime biotech entrepreneur Chris Garabedian on a $210 million fund — with money contributed by institutional investors and family funds — to go into the launch space with their first early-stage VC fund. Dubbed the Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund, LP, or just PXV Fund, they plan to favor upstarts that Garabedian is fostering in his incubator. But they’ll also plan to reach outside that inner circle for more A rounds to back, with plans to dominate initial funding with $10 million to $20 million per newborn biotech.

Left top to right: Mark Timney, Alex Denner, Vas Narasimhan. (The Medicines Company, Getty, AP/Endpoints News)

December 9, 2019 03:35 PM EST

Jason Mast

Deals

In a play-by-play of the $9.7B MedCo buyout, Novartis admits it overpaid while offering a huge windfall to execs

A month into his tenure at The Medicines Company, new CEO Mark Timney reached out to then-Novartis pharma chief Paul Hudson: Any interest in a partnership?

No, Hudson told him. Not now, at least.

Ten months later, Hudson had left to run Sanofi and Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan was paying $9.7 billion for the one-drug biotech – the largest in the string of acquisitions Narasimhan has signed since his 2017 appointment.

The deal was the product of an activist investor and his controversial partner working through nearly a year of cat-and-mouse negotiations to secure a deal with Big Pharma’s most expansionist executive. It represented a huge bet in a cardiovascular field that already saw two major busts in recent years and brought massive returns for two of the industry’s most eye-raising names.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 67,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Associate Director / Director, Technology Transfer (US/China)

Cold Genesys, Inc.

view job offer post your job now

December 10, 2019 06:49 AM EST

Zachary Brennan

Pharma

US biosimilar launches about to turn a corner

The US biosimilar industry has lingered in the shadow of the European market since the US pathway for approvals was initiated in 2009.

Ten years later (or less than five years since the first FDA approval of a biosimilar), and just 42% (11 out of 26) of FDA-approved biosimilars have launched. But in the next three months (see chart below), a clutch of new biosimilars will hit the market, including new ones in oncology, hinting at a wave of uptake.

Paul Hudson. Sanofi

December 9, 2019 05:42 AM ESTUpdated 07:00 AM

Amber Tong

Deals

New Sanofi CEO Hudson adds next-gen cancer drug tech to the R&D quest, buying Synthorx for $2.5B

When Paul Hudson lays out his R&D vision for Sanofi tomorrow, he will have a new slate of interleukin therapies and a synthetic biology platform to boast about.

The French pharma giant announced early Monday that it is snagging San Diego biotech Synthorx in a $2.5 billion deal. That marks an affordable bolt-on for Sanofi but a considerable return for Synthorx backers, including Avalon, RA Capital and OrbiMed: At $68 per share, the price represents a 172% premium to Friday’s closing.

Synthorx’s take on alternative IL-2 drugs for both cancer and autoimmune disorders — enabled by a synthetic DNA base pair pioneered by Scripps professor Floyd Romesberg — “fits perfectly” with the kind of innovation that he wants at Sanofi, Hudson said.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 67,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.