Biotech grieves over Tachi’s passing; $3 trillion mirage?; Sanofi has a new Pompe drug; and more

August 7, 2021 06:00 AM EDT

Biotech grieves over Tachi’s passing; $3 trillion mirage?; Sanofi has a new Pompe drug; and more

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

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.

While I did not personally know Dr. Tachi Yamada, it’s clear from the outpouring of tributes just how many lives he touched and changed. Once again, our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones.

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Healthcare Disparities and Sickle Cell Disease

Frank Lee

CEO of Forma Therapeutics

In the complicated U.S. healthcare system, navigating a serious illness such as cancer or heart disease can be remarkably challenging for patients and caregivers. When that illness is classified as a rare disease, those challenges can become even more acute. And when that rare disease occurs in a population that experiences health disparities, such as people with sickle cell disease (SCD) who are primarily Black and Latino, challenges can become almost insurmountable.

David Meek, new Mirati CEO (Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

September 20, 2021 07:55 AM EDT

People

Fresh off FerGene's meltdown, David Meek takes over at Mirati with lead KRAS drug racing to an approval

Kyle Blankenship

Managing Editor

In the insular world of biotech, a spectacular failure can sometimes stay on any executive’s record for a long time. But for David Meek, the man at the helm of FerGene’s recent implosion, two questionable exits made way for what could be an excellent rebound.

Meek, most recently FerGene’s CEO and a past head at Ipsen, has become CEO at Mirati Therapeutics, taking the reins from founding CEO Charles Baum, who will step over into the role of president and head of R&D, according to a release.

Jacob Van Naarden (Eli Lilly)

September 20, 2021 01:15 PM EDTUpdated 02:06 PM

Bioregnum

Exclusives: Eli Lilly out to crash the megablockbuster PD-(L)1 party with 'disruptive' pricing; reveals cancer biotech buyout

Paul Schloesser

Editorial Intern

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

It’s taken 7 years, but Eli Lilly is promising to finally start hammering the small and affluent PD-(L)1 club with a “disruptive” pricing strategy for their checkpoint therapy allied with China’s Innovent.

Lilly in-licensed global rights to sintilimab a year ago, building on the China alliance they have with Innovent. That cost the pharma giant $200 million in cash upfront, which they plan to capitalize on now with a long-awaited plan to bust up the high-price market in lung cancer and other cancers that have created a market worth tens of billions of dollars.

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Senior Analyst, Oncology

Brass Tacks Health

Remote

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Jay Bradner (Jeff Rumans for Endpoints News)

September 21, 2021 01:15 AM EDTUpdated 03:17 AM

Deals

Cell/Gene Tx

Diving deeper into inherited retinal disorders, Novartis gobbles up another bite-sized optogenetics biotech

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Right about a year ago, a Novartis team led by Jay Bradner and Cynthia Grosskreutz at NIBR swooped in to scoop up a Cambridge, MA-based opthalmology gene therapy company called Vedere. Their focus was on a rather narrow market niche: inherited retinal dystrophies that include a wide range of genetic retinal disorders marked by the loss of photoreceptor cells and progressive vision loss.

But that was just the first deal that whet their appetite.

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September 18, 2021 06:00 AM EDTUpdated 01:06 PM

Weekly

Latest news: It’s a no on universal boosters; Patient death stuns gene therapy field; Inside Trillium’s $2.3B turnaround; and more

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

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.

Next week is shaping up to be a busy one, as our editor-in-chief John Carroll and managing editor Kyle Blankenship lead back-to-back discussions with a great group of experts to discuss the weekend news and trends. John will be spending 30 minutes with Jake Van Naarden, the CEO of Lilly Oncology, and Kyle has a brilliant panel lined up: Harvard’s Cigall Kadoch, Susan Galbraith, the new head of cancer R&D at AstraZeneca, Roy Baynes at Merck, and James Christensen at Mirati. Don’t miss out on the action — sign up here.

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September 20, 2021 05:57 PM EDTUpdated 06:24 PM

FDA+

FDA hands accelerated nod to Seagen, Genmab's solo ADC in cervical cancer, but combo studies look even more promising

Kyle Blankenship

Managing Editor

Biopharma’s resident antibody-drug conjugate expert Seagen has scored a clutch of oncology approvals in recent years, finding gold in what are known as “third-gen” ADCs. Now, another of their partnered conjugates is ready for prime time.

The FDA on Monday handed an accelerated approval to Seagen and Genmab’s Tivdak (tisotumab vedotin-tftv, or “TV”) in second-line patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer who previously progressed after chemotherapy rather than PD-(L)1 systemic therapy, the companies said in a release.

Dave Lennon, former president of Novartis Gene Therapies

September 20, 2021 11:09 AM EDT

Cell/Gene Tx

Zolgensma patent spat brews between Novartis and Regenxbio as top Novartis gene therapy exec departs

Zachary Brennan

Senior Editor

Regenxbio, a small licensor of gene therapy viral vectors spun out from the University of Pennsylvania, is now finding itself in the middle of some major league patent fights.

In addition to a patent suit with Sarepta Therapeutics from last September, Novartis, is now trying to push its smaller partner out of the way. The Swiss biopharma licensed Regenxbio’s AAV9 vector for its $2.1 million spinal muscular atrophy therapy Zolgensma.

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Senior Scientific Research Analyst

American Association for Cancer Research

Philadelphia, PA, USA

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Volker Wagner (L) and Jeff Legos

September 20, 2021 10:12 AM EDTUpdated 02:59 PM

R&D

In Focus

As Bayer, Novartis stack up their radiopharmaceutical data at #ESMO21, a key debate takes shape

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Ten years ago, a small Norwegian biotech by the name of Algeta showed up at ESMO — then the European Multidisciplinary Cancer Conference 2011 — and declared that its Bayer-partnered targeted radionuclide therapy, radium-223 chloride, boosted the overall survival of castration-resistant prostate cancer patients with symptomatic bone metastases.

In a Phase III study dubbed ALSYMPCA, patients who were treated with radium-223 chloride lived a median of 14 months compared to 11.2 months. The FDA would stamp an approval on it based on those data two years later, after Bayer snapped up Algeta and christened the drug Xofigo.

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Rafaèle Tordjman (Jeito Capital)

September 20, 2021 08:11 AM EDT

Financing

Continuity and diversity: Rafaèle Tordjman's women-led VC firm tops out first fund at $630M

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

For a first-time fund, Jeito Capital talks a lot about continuity.

Rafaèle Tordjman had spotlighted that concept ever since she started building the firm in 2018, promising to go the extra mile(s) with biotech entrepreneurs while pushing them to reach patients faster.

Coincidentally, the lack of continuity was one of the sore spots listed in a report about the European healthcare sector published that same year by the European Investment Bank — whose fund is one of the LPs, alongside the American pension fund Teacher Retirement System of Texas and Singapore’s Temasek, to help Jeito close its first fund at $630 million (€534 million). As previously reported, Sanofi had chimed in €50 million, marking its first investment in a French life sciences fund.