Bio­gen hands over $45M cash to li­cense a tau project for Alzheimer's; No­var­tis launch­es a lot­tery for free dose of the world's prici­est drug

→ Bio­gen isn’t done gam­bling on Alzheimer’s. The big biotech is pay­ing Io­n­is $45 mil­lion up­front to li­cense their an­ti­sense pro­gram for IO­N­IS-MAP­TRx, an ef­fort fo­cused on shut­ting down pro­duc­tion of tau, one of two tox­ic pro­teins of­ten found in the brains of pa­tients. Io­n­is al­so has an­oth­er $155 mil­lion in mile­stones to shoot for in the deal.

→ No­var­tis has drawn up a plan to give away 100 dos­es of Zol­gens­ma — the world’s most ex­pen­sive ther­a­py at $2.1 mil­lion — for free. The pro­gram is de­signed for in­fants with spinal mus­cu­lar at­ro­phy in coun­tries where the med­i­cine is pend­ing ap­proval. Be­gin­ning in Jan­u­ary, an in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sion or­ga­nized by its sub­sidiary AveX­is will con­duct bi-week­ly draws of el­i­gi­ble ba­bies un­der the age of 2. “AveX­is’ in­ten­tion is for this to be a long-term com­mit­ment,” a No­var­tis spokesman told Reuters.  De­spite be­ing taint­ed by an ethics scan­dal and ham­pered by pay­er re­sis­tance, the gene ther­a­py has earned $175 mil­lion in sales since gain­ing ap­proval in May.

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