Bristol Myers bets big on anti-TIGIT bispecific from Agenus in a partnership worth $1.5B+

Jennifer Buell, Agenus president and COO (PR News Wire)

May 18, 2021 07:30 AM EDT

Bristol Myers bets big on anti-TIGIT bispecific from Agenus in a partnership worth $1.5B+

Max Gelman

Senior Editor

The race to develop anti-TIGIT drugs continues to heat up, as a major I/O player partners with a biotech once riddled with setbacks.

Bristol Myers Squibb is enlisting a preclinical program from Agenus to its pipeline, plunking down $200 million upfront for a bispecific antibody that targets both TIGIT and another undisclosed target. The Big Pharma will sweeten the pot with up to $1.36 billion in potential milestones, and Agenus will retain options to develop the candidate in combination with some of its other programs.

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Lina Gugucheva, NewAmsterdam Pharma CBO

June 28, 2022 08:00 AM EDT

Deals

Pharma group bets up to $1B-plus on the PhIII resurrection of a once dead-and-buried LDL drug

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Close to 5 years after then-Amgen R&D chief Sean Harper tamped the last spade of dirt on the last broadly focused CETP cholesterol drug — burying their $300 million upfront and the few remaining hopes for the class with it — the therapy has been fully resurrected. And today, the NewAmsterdam Pharma crew that did the Lazarus treatment on obicetrapib is taking another big step on the comeback trail with a €1 billion-plus regional licensing deal, complete with close to $150 million in upfront cash.

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June 27, 2022 07:00 AM EDT

R&D

Scoop: Boehringer quietly shutters a PhII for one of its top drugs — now under review

Kyle LaHucik

Associate Editor

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Boehringer Ingelheim has quietly shut down a small Phase II study for one of its lead drugs.

The private pharma player confirmed to Endpoints News that it had shuttered a study testing spesolimab as a therapy for Crohn’s patients suffering from bowel obstructions.

A spokesperson for the company tells Endpoints:

Taking into consideration the current therapeutic landscape and ongoing clinical development programs, Boehringer Ingelheim decided to discontinue our program in Crohn’s disease. It is important to note that this decision is not based on any safety findings in the clinical trials.

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Vas Narasimhan (Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

June 28, 2022 12:50 PM EDTUpdated 04:26 PM

R&D

Novartis details plans to axe 8,000 staffers as Narasimhan begins second phase of a global reorg

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

We now know the number of jobs coming under the axe at Novartis, and it isn’t small.

The pharma giant is confirming a report from Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger that it is chopping 8,000 jobs out of its 108,000 global staffers. A large segment will hit right at company headquarters in Basel, as CEO Vas Narasimhan axes some 1,400 of a little more than 11,000 jobs in Switzerland.

The first phase of the work is almost done, the company says in a statement to Endpoints News. Now it’s on to phase two. In the statement, Novartis says:

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Director of Quality Assurance

ImmunityBio

Dunkirk, NY, USA

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June 28, 2022 07:17 AM EDT

Pharma

In Focus

How prepared is biopharma for the cyber doomsday?

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

One of the largest cyberattacks in history happened on a Friday, Eric Perakslis distinctly remembers.

Perakslis, who was head of Takeda’s R&D Data Sciences Institute and visiting faculty at Harvard Medical School at the time, had spent that morning completing a review on cybersecurity for the British Medical Journal. Moments after he turned it in, he heard back from the editor: “Have you heard what’s going on right now?”

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(AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

June 28, 2022 02:27 PM EDTUpdated 04:38 PM

Pharma

Some pharma companies promise to cover abortion-related travel costs — while others won't go that far yet

Nicole DeFeudis

Editor

As the US Department of Health and Human Services promises to support the millions of women who would now need to cross state lines to receive a legal abortion, a handful of pharma companies have said they will pick up employees’ travel expenses.

GSK, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, BeiGene, Alnylam and Gilead have all committed to covering abortion-related travel expenses just four days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and revoked women’s constitutional right to an abortion.

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Aurobindo Pharma co-founders P. V. Ram Prasad Reddy (L) and K. Nityananda Reddy

June 28, 2022 02:22 PM EDTUpdated 03:44 PM

Pharma

FDA+

Manufacturing

Aurobindo Pharma receives warning letter from India's SEC following more FDA question marks

Tyler Patchen

News Reporter

Indian-based generics manufacturer Aurobindo Pharma has been in the crosshairs of the FDA for several years now, but the company is also attracting attention from regulators within the subcontinent.

According to the Indian business news site Business Standard, a warning letter was sent to the company from the Securities Exchange Board of India, or SEBI.

The letter is related to disclosures made by the company on an ongoing FDA audit of the company’s Unit-1 API facility in Hyderabad, India as well as observations made by the US regulator between 2019 and 2022.

New Charles River Laboratories High Quality (HQ) Plasmid DNA Centre of Excellence at Bruntwood SciTech’s Alderley Park in Cheshire, United Kingdom. (Charles River)

June 28, 2022 02:17 PM EDTUpdated 04:07 PM

Manufacturing

Charles River Laboratories to start cell and gene therapy manufacturing at UK site in September

Tyler Patchen

News Reporter

While Massachusetts-based Charles River Laboratories has been on an acquisition spree, they are not against planting their flag. The latest move by the company sees them crossing the pond to establish a manufacturing site in the UK.

The company on Tuesday opened its cell and gene therapy manufacturing center at Bruntwood SciTech’s Alderley Park in Cheshire, United Kingdom. The expansion follows Charles River’s acquisition of Cognate BioServices and Cobra Biologics in 2021 for $875 million. Cognate is a plasmid DNA, viral vector and cell therapy CDMO.

ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Product Sales Manager

ImmunityBio

Remote

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Bristol Myers Squibb (Alamy)

June 28, 2022 01:57 PM EDT

Pharma

CVS resumes coverage of blockbuster blood thinner after price drop follows January exclusion

Zachary Brennan

Senior Editor

Following some backlash from the American College of Cardiology and patients, Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer lowered the price of their blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis, thus ensuring that CVS Caremark would cover the drug after 6 months of it being off the major PBM’s formulary.

“Because we secured lower net costs for patients from negotiations with the drug manufacturer, Eliquis will be added back to our template formularies for the commercial segment effective July 1, 2022, and patient choices will be expanded,” CVS Health said in an emailed statement. “Anti-coagulant therapies are among the non-specialty products where we are seeing the fastest cost increases from drug manufacturers and we will continue to push back on unwarranted price increases.”

June 28, 2022 12:53 PM EDT

Pharma

Marketing

#CannesLions2022: Consumer health execs call on agencies to involve patients in creative process

Nicole DeFeudis

Editor

CANNES — When Tamara Rogers joined GSK back in 2018, “science was king and R&D were the gods.” Now the global chief marketing officer of consumer healthcare wants to make room for another supreme being: the consumer.

As health and wellness becomes more relevant to consumers amid the pandemic, four health-focused executives called on marketers to involve patients in their creative process in a panel discussion at the Cannes Lions advertising creativity festival.

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