Rallybio founders (L-R): Jeff Fryer, Martin Mackay and Steve Uden

As Sanofi prunes pipeline, ex-Alex­ion crew at Rally­bio picks up ane­mia drug

More than a year af­ter it bought Kymab for $1.5 bil­lion, Sanofi is get­ting rid of a pre­clin­i­cal pro­gram that came with the deal.

Sanofi has out-li­censed its KY1066 an­ti­body to New Haven, CT-based Rally­bio who has re­dubbed it RLYB331. The deal saw Rally­bio make an up­front cash pay­ment of $3 mil­lion to Sanofi in ad­di­tion to promis­ing de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial mile­stones and mid to high sin­gle-dig­it roy­al­ties on net sales.

Rally­bio, which was formed by old Alex­ion ex­ecs, is a clin­i­cal-stage biotech fo­cused on de­vel­op­ing ther­a­pies for pa­tients with se­vere and rare dis­eases. Tues­day’s deal is fair­ly stan­dard for the biotech, as its mod­el is to scout rare dis­ease drugs in acad­e­mia and phar­ma and form a pipeline of drugs to ex­e­cute a quick piv­ot to reg­u­la­tors.

This deal al­so comes as Sanofi re­shapes it­self through di­vest­ments, pipeline prun­ing and launch­ing spin-offs as CEO Paul Hud­son at­tempts to rein­vig­o­rate the com­pa­ny. By the end of this year, the com­pa­ny is look­ing to re­duce its ap­proved drug port­fo­lio to about 125 fran­chis­es, ei­ther by di­vest­ing or dis­con­tin­u­ing pro­grams.

CEO Mar­tin Mack­ay tells End­points News that this an­ti­body has been on Rally­bio’s radar for quite a while. Ac­cord­ing to Mack­ay, RLYB331 can ad­dress se­vere ane­mia with in­ef­fec­tive ery­thro­poiesis and iron over­load, with ap­pli­ca­tions in a range of dis­eases like be­ta-tha­lassemia and a sub­set of myelodys­plas­tic syn­dromes, among oth­ers.

RLYB331 it­self is a mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body that in­hibits Ma­trip­tase-2 (MTP-2), which can in­crease lev­els of an iron-reg­u­lat­ing pep­tide hor­mone. The stan­dard of care for many such hema­to­log­i­cal dis­or­ders leaves some pa­tients with iron over­load-as­so­ci­at­ed ane­mias, which can re­sult in com­pli­ca­tions and even death.

“We see re­al­ly big po­ten­tial here. We’ve worked in rare dis­eases for many years now. And the key thing about work­ing in rare dis­eases is mak­ing sure that the ben­e­fit is tru­ly trans­for­ma­tive,” Mack­ay said. “And we’re not look­ing for an in­cre­men­tal step ben­e­fit here.”

In terms of a time­line to­ward de­vel­op­ment, Mack­ay said that the ob­jec­tive now is just for Rally­bio to ful­ly un­der­stand the an­ti­body, but it does plan to move quick­ly once that is achieved.

Tues­day’s deal comes af­ter Rally­bio brought in sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing over the past sev­er­al years, cul­mi­nat­ing with a $145 mil­lion Se­ries B in 2020.

Roger Perl­mut­ter lines up deals, fresh fund­ing at Eikon; Sec­ond RSV vac­cine ap­proved; Sev­er­al biotechs flash­ing red; and more

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

As you come back to our website this weekend for ASCO news, don’t forget to check out our updated event lineup at BIO, which will cover everything from the current state of VC investing in biotech to top pharma R&D chiefs discussing how to make pipeline decisions.

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Image courtesy of The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Pro­tect­ing the glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem – what’s at stake?

We are living in a new era of healthcare that is rapidly advancing progress impacting patient outcomes and experiences. We’ve seen a remarkable pace of transformational innovation, applied research, and advanced clinical development over the last decade.

Despite this tremendous progress, there is much more work to be done, and patients are counting on us – now more than ever – to continue that momentum. At the heart of our industry is a focus on developing and delivering medicines for some of the world’s most challenging diseases, including those that have few or no effective treatments today.

Roger Perlmutter, Eikon Therapeutics CEO

Roger Perl­mut­ter builds Eikon's pipeline with deal-mak­ing flur­ry, rais­ing $106M more

Eikon Therapeutics announced three business development deals on Thursday, effectively dropping in a pipeline of cancer drugs alongside more than $100 million in fresh funding.

The Hayward, CA-based company has become one of biotech’s richest startups since its 2019 founding, having raised nearly $775 million. It’s developing a massive, automated research approach built around Nobel Prize-winning microscope science to peer inside cells and watch proteins in action. After its Series B last year, PitchBook reported a $3.02 billion valuation. And while CEO Roger Perlmutter declined to comment on that figure, he said its first tranche of nearly $106 million in Series C funding is a “meaningful step-up to our Series B valuation.”

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GSK pro­motes rou­tine im­mu­niza­tions for adults amid post-pan­dem­ic vac­cine back­slide

GSK launched a new initiative on Thursday and committed up to $1 million in grant funding to improve adult routine vaccination rates.

While the pandemic spotlight was trained on the race for novel Covid-19 vaccines, other routine vaccination rates plummeted, raising concerns that missed doses may put children and even some adults at risk of preventable diseases such as measles or shingles. The World Health Organization last year reported the largest drop in childhood vaccinations in roughly three decades.

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Tammie Denyse speaks up about Black women and breast cancer inequity in Gilead's first TikTok campaign. (Gilead Sciences)

Gilead joins Tik­Tok with on­col­o­gy aware­ness cam­paign fea­tur­ing di­verse group of can­cer ad­vo­cates

Gilead Sciences is taking over the opening page on TikTok for the next two weeks. A Gilead-sponsored video, featuring cancer advocates talking about equity and other issues, will show up as the landing page, called the “For You” page, for millions of TikTok watchers.

The cancer awareness campaign will begin on Monday and run for two weeks, a Gilead spokesperson told Endpoints News. The TikTok ad debut is timed around the ASCO medical conference, but the work is aimed more broadly at healthcare professionals, as well as people touched by cancer and people interested in advancing Black and general health equity.

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Stephen MacMillan, Hologic CEO (Photo by Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit)

Il­lu­mi­na names Ho­log­ic CEO as new board mem­ber and chair

Illumina’s board appointed two new members, including Hologic CEO Stephen MacMillan as the non-executive chair, a move that followed a proxy fight that saw shareholders oust the company’s board chair.

The DNA sequencing company also appointed Scott Ullem, the CFO of Edwards Lifesciences, to the board, according to a company statement.

Illumina’s plans to add two new board members came as Carl Icahn waged a board proxy campaign culminating with shareholders electing his candidate, Andrew Teno, over board chair John Thompson. Illumina CEO Francis deSouza survived a threat to his board seat by securing more than twice the shareholder votes than his challenger. Another Illumina candidate, Robert Epstein, was also elected and remained on the board.

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Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment calls mem­ber states to ac­tion on an­timi­cro­bial re­sis­tance

Members of the European Parliament have called on EU countries to develop national action plans against antimicrobial resistance (AMR), calling it a top-three priority health threat.

Parliament on Thursday announced recommendations for the fight against AMR, including national action plans that must be updated at least every two years, an EU-level database tracking AMR and antimicrobial use and increased partnership between the pharma industry, patient groups and academia.

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Peter van de Sande, Synaffix CEO

Lon­za shells out $107M cash to snap up Synaf­fix and its ADC plat­form

After lining up a string of partnerships over the years, Dutch antibody-drug conjugate specialist Synaffix has found a new home: Lonza, the contract development and manufacturing giant.

Lonza is paying about $107 million (€100 million) in cash to acquire Synaffix, with up to $64 million (€60 million) in “additional performance-based consideration” on the table. Synaffix’s ADC tech platform will now become part of Lonza’s offering for biopharma clients, lending its bioconjugate technologies to not just ADCs but also targeted gene therapy, immune cell engagers and other applications.

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Grail’s blood test charts path for di­ag­nos­ing pa­tients sus­pect­ed of hav­ing can­cer in large study: #AS­CO23

Grail’s vision is simple but bold. The blood testing company has long held that people are often diagnosed with cancer too late. If seemingly healthy people were screened for early signs of the disease before symptoms appear, they may be able to get more effective treatments that nip cancer in the bud.

That premise is the basis of Grail’s commercial blood test, Galleri, which searches for the genetic fingerprints of cancer in the blood. The test, launched in 2021, reaped $55 million in sales last year, but now the company is setting its sights on a new market: patients suspected of having cancer due to symptoms such as abdominal pain, rectal bleeding or unexplained weight loss. Rather than administering expensive scans or conducting invasive biopsies right away, Grail hopes doctors will consider a simple blood test.

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