⇨ Bio­gen spin­out Biover­a­tiv is col­lab­o­rat­ing with Bi­cy­cle Ther­a­peu­tics on new he­mo­phil­ia and sick­le cell dis­ease pep­tide ther­a­pies. The deal comes with $10 mil­lion up front and $4.2 mil­lion for re­search sup­port. Then there’s $410 mil­lion in mile­stones that add up for a string of po­ten­tial suc­cess­es.

⇨ Tom Graney is jump­ing ship at Iron­wood $IR­WD and mov­ing over to Ver­tex $VRTX as its new CFO.

⇨ Avadel Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals is fronting $50 mil­lion for li­cens­ing rights to Noc­ti­va, a drug for noc­turia due to noc­tur­nal polyuria.

⇨ MEI Phar­ma {MEIP} has forged a li­cens­ing pact with Presage Bio­sciences for voru­ci­clib, an oral and se­lec­tive cy­clin-de­pen­dent ki­nase in­hibitor. Un­der the terms of the agree­ment, MEI Phar­ma re­ceives ex­clu­sive world­wide rights to de­vel­op, man­u­fac­ture and com­mer­cial­ize voru­ci­clib and Presage will re­ceive near-term pay­ments of $2.9 mil­lion and ad­di­tion­al po­ten­tial pay­ments of up to $181 mil­lion.

⇨ Strug­gling San Diego-based Mab­Vax $MB­VX has en­gaged some help in ex­plor­ing its strate­gic al­ter­na­tives.

Eli Lilly has succeeded in its attempt to get the first non-covalent version of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase, or BTK, inhibitors to market, pushing it past rival Merck.

The FDA gave an accelerated nod to Lilly’s daily oral med, to be sold as Jaypirca, for patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma.

The agency’s green light, disclosed by the Indianapolis Big Pharma on Friday afternoon, catapults Lilly into a field dominated by covalent BTK inhibitors, which includes AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson’s Imbruvica, AstraZeneca’s Calquence and BeiGene’s Brukinsa.

The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) voted unanimously in favor of “harmonizing” Covid vaccine compositions, meaning all current vaccine recipients would receive a bivalent vaccine, regardless of whether they’ve gotten their primary series.

The vote marks an effort to clear up confusion around varying formulations and dosing schedules for current primary series and booster vaccines, as well as “get closer to the strains that are circulating,” according to committee member Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The CDMO arm of one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates has posted its year-end results and plans for 2023, which include new construction.

Samsung Biologics netted north of KRW 3 trillion ($2.4 billion) in 2022 revenue and an operating profit of KRW 983.6 billion ($799 million), which the company touted on Friday as “record-high earnings.” The revenue boost was 55% compared to 2021.

Novartis’ sickle cell drug, approved in 2019 and branded as Adakveo, has failed an ongoing Phase III, according to preliminary results.

The Swiss pharma giant unveiled early data from the ongoing STAND Phase III study on Friday, saying that crizanlizumab showed no statistically significant difference between the drug at two different dose levels compared to placebo in annualized rates of vaso-occlusive crises that lead to a healthcare visit over the first year since being randomized into the trial.