Cancer vax biotech Amal grabs $10M round; Global Blood Therapeutics eyes PRV with new FDA designation

September 5, 2017 08:44 AM EDTUpdated 09:27 AM

Shehla Shakoor

Cancer vax biotech Amal grabs $10M round; Global Blood Therapeutics eyes PRV with new FDA designation

⇨ Geneva-based Amal Therapeutics has picked up about $10 million in Series B money for its work on peptide-based cancer vaccines. Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, BioMedPartners and Helsinn Investment Fund invested alongside VI Partners, High-Tech Gründerfonds and Schroder Adveq.

⇨ Global Blood Therapeutics $GBT picked up a rare pediatric disease designation for GBT440, putting it in line for a possible priority review voucher.

⇨ Enzyvant has also won a rare pediatric disease designation for RVT-802, its therapy for the treatment of primary immune deficiency resulting from congenital athymia associated with complete DiGeorge Syndrome.

⇨ BARDA has decided to end funding of Sanofi’s Zika vaccine project. And so Sanofi says it will now stop work on the program — for now at least.

⇨ Synergy Pharmaceuticals $SGYP announced today that the company has closed on a $300 million debt financing structured as senior secured loans from CRG.

⇨ Shares of Israel’s Cellect Biotechnology $APOP popped up 40% after the FDA handed over an orphan drug designation for ApoGraft, used for the prevention of acute and chronic graft versus host disease in transplant patients.

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Amarin CEO John Thero discussing the company's plans for Vascepa, August 2019 — via Bloomberg

December 13, 2019 04:35 PM ESTUpdated 04:55 PM

John Carroll

Pharma

Regulatory

Amarin wins a blockbuster approval from the FDA. Now everyone can shift focus to the patent

For all those people who could never quite believe that Amarin $AMRN would get an expanded label with blockbuster implications, the stress and anxiety on display right up to the last minute on Twitter can now end. But new, pressing questions will immediately surface now that the OK has come through.

On Friday afternoon, the FDA stamped its landmark approval on the industrial strength fish oil for reducing cardio risks for a large and well defined population of patients. The approval doesn’t give Amarin everything it wants in expanding its use, losing out on the primary prevention group, but it goes a long way to doing what the company needed to make a major splash. The approval was cited for patients with “elevated triglyceride levels (a type of fat in the blood) of 150 milligrams per deciliter or higher. Patients must also have either established cardiovascular disease or diabetes and two or more additional risk factors for cardiovascular disease.”

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December 12, 2019 06:40 PM ESTUpdated 21 hours ago

Amber Tong

R&D

Regulatory

Sarepta was stunned by the rejection of Vyondys 53. Now it's stunning everyone with a surprise accelerated approval

Sarepta has a friend in the FDA after all. Four months after the agency determined that it would be wrong to give Sarepta an accelerated approval for their Duchenne MD drug golodirsen, regulators have executed a stunning about face and offered the biotech a quick green light in any case.

It was the agency that first put out the news late Thursday, announcing that Duchenne MD patients with a mutation amenable to exon 53 skipping will now have their first targeted treatment: Vyondys 53, or golodirsen. Having secured the OK via a dispute resolution mechanism, the biotech said the new drug has been priced on par with their only other marketed drug, Exondys 51 — which for an average patient costs about $300,000 per year, but since pricing is based on weight, that sticker price can even cross $1 million.

Sarepta shares $SRPT surged 23% after-market to $124.

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Paul Hudson, Getty Images

December 9, 2019 05:27 PM ESTUpdated December 10, 08:48 AM

John Carroll

R&D

UPDATED: Sanofi CEO Hudson lays out new R&D focus — chopping diabetes, cardio and slashing $2B-plus costs in surgical dissection

Earlier on Monday, new Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson baited the hook on his upcoming strategy presentation Tuesday with a tell-tale deal to buy Synthorx for $2.5 billion. That fits squarely with hints that he’s pointing the company to a bigger future in oncology, which also squares with a major industry tilt.

In a big reveal later in the day, though, Hudson offered a slate of stunners on his plans to surgically dissect and reassemble the portfoloio, saying that the company is dropping cardio and diabetes research — which covers two of its biggest franchise arenas. Sanofi missed the boat on developing new diabetes drugs, and now it’s pulling out entirely. As part of the pullback, it’s dropping efpeglenatide, their once-weekly GLP-1 injection for diabetes.

“To be out of cardiovascular and diabetes is not easy for a company like ours with an incredibly proud history,” Hudson said on a call with reporters, according to the Wall Street Journal. “As tough a choice as that is, we’re making that choice.”

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Paul Biondi (File photo)

December 13, 2019 08:26 AM ESTUpdated 03:15 PM

John Carroll

R&D

Paul Biondi's track record at Bristol-Myers covered billions in deals of every shape and size. Here's the complete breakdown

Paul Biondi was never afraid to bet big during his stint as business development chief at Bristol-Myers Squibb. And while the gambles didn’t all pay out, by any means, his roster of pacts illustrates the broad ambitions the pharma giant has had over the last 5 years — capped by the $74 billion Celgene buyout.

On Thursday, we learned that Biondi had exited the company. And Chris Dokomajilar at DealForma came up with the complete breakdown on every buyout, licensing pact and product purchase Bristol-Myers forged during his tenure in charge of the BD team at one of the busiest companies in biopharma.

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Arie Belldegrun (Photo: Jeff Rumans for Endpoints News)

December 13, 2019 05:52 PM EST

Jason Mast

Cell/Gene Tx

Jury finds Gilead liable for $585M and big royalties in Kite CAR-T patent case

A Kite deal that’s already become a burden on Gilead’s back just got heavier as a California jury has ruled Gilead must pay Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sloan Kettering $585 million plus a 27.6% royalty for patent infringement committed by its subsidiary. The ruling is almost certain to be appealed.

Kite Pharma — founded by Arie Belldegrun, now focused on a next-gen CAR-T company — has been facing a lawsuit since the day its first CAR–T therapy won approval in October, 2017. Juno Therapeutics and Sloan Kettering filed a complaint saying Kite had copied its technology. Gilead acquired Kite in June of that year for $11.9 billion. Juno was acquired the following year by Celgene for $9 billion, before Celgene was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2019.

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December 13, 2019 04:23 PM EST

Jason Mast

Regulatory

FDA expert panel unanimously recommends approval for Horizon Therapeutics eye drug

An FDA advisory committee noted with concern a small safety database but unanimously endorsed a Horizon Therapeutics drug for a rare eye autoimmune disease that can blind patients: teprotumumab for thyroid eye disease (TED).

“It was a pretty easy vote,” said Erica Brittain, an NIH biostatistician and one of the 12 panelists on FDA’s Dermatologic and Ophthalmic Drugs Advisory Committee.

Paul Biondi (File photo)

December 12, 2019 03:30 PM EST

John Carroll

People

Bristol-Myers' strategy, BD chief Paul Biondi exited the company — just ahead of the $74B Celgene deal close

Paul Biondi, who orchestrated billions of dollars in deals for Bristol-Myers Squibb over the 5 years he’s run their business development team, has exited the company. Biondi left last month, according to a company spokesperson, in pursuit of another — unspecified — external opportunity.

After 17 years with Bristol-Myers Squibb, Paul Biondi, Head of Strategy and Business Development, decided to leave the company to pursue an external opportunity. The company wishes him well in his new endeavors. Bristol-Myers Squibb is actively searching for Paul’s successor, and will make an announcement, as appropriate.

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Arie Belldegrun at UKBIO 2019. Shai Dolev for Endpoints News

December 12, 2019 10:52 AM EST

Jason Mast

Cell/Gene Tx

Kite Pharma's ex-CEO contradicts founder as CAR-T patent trial heats up, with conflicting valuations

Two days after Kite Pharma founder Arie Belldegrun told a federal courtroom that a meeting he had with a Memorial Sloan Kettering executive wasn’t about licensing their immunotherapy patent, Kite’s ex-CEO Aya Jakobovits said it was.

The admission came Tuesday during cross-examination in a patent infringement case that features two of the biggest cancer biotechs and some of the most well-known names in American medicine.

Jakobovits initially said she was not in attendance, didn’t know it was going to happen and didn’t know what took place, according to Law360. But then the plaintiff’s lawyer handed her a document – whose contents were not publicly revealed – and asked again if she learned after-the-fact that the meeting involved a potential patent license.

“Yes,” Jakobovits eventually said.

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December 12, 2019 09:18 AM ESTUpdated 09:47 AM

John Carroll

R&D

On the heels of promising MCL data, Kite hustles its 2nd CAR-T to the FDA as the next big race in the field draws to the finish line

Three days after Gilead’s Kite subsidiary showed off stellar data on their number 2 CAR-T KTE-X19 at ASH, the executive team has pivoted straight to the FDA with a BLA filing and a shot at a near-term approval.

In a small, 74-patient Phase II trial reported out at the beginning of the week, investigators tracked a 93% response rate with two out of three mantle cell lymphoma patients experiencing a complete response.

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