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Es­pe­ri­on stock halved af­ter Dai­ichi dis­cord over $440M heart pill mile­stones

Esperion’s CLEAR Outcomes trial does not have a clear outcome regarding partner Daiichi Sankyo ponying up the big biobucks.

Esperion’s heart pill, which has struggled to gain traction, was due for up to $440 million in milestones from Daiichi following a data readout earlier this month aiming to expand the EU and US labels.

But the Michigan biotech’s partner appears to disagree on which data would trigger the payments. Esperion outlined the mismatched views in an SEC filing Wednesday afternoon, and investors sent the company’s stock $ESPR on a rapid 54% decline in after-hours trading.

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Jounce faces hos­tile takeover bid from mi­nor­i­ty stake­hold­er

Cancer biotech Jounce Therapeutics has gotten a hostile takeover bid from Concentra Biosciences, a San Diego company backed by Tang Capital Partners.

Tang Capital is also a shareholder in Jounce, owning just over 10% of its shares, which according to SEC documents were all purchased in the last two months. But Jounce already has a merger agreement with Redx Pharma that it announced in February and was expected to complete in the second quarter of this year. Through that merger, Redx was planning to jump on the Nasdaq.

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Vas Narasimhan, Novartis CEO (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP)

No­var­tis looks to of­fload even more of its eye prod­ucts — re­port

Following its recent trend of offloading assets, Novartis is contacting potential buyers for some ophthalmology assets, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Novartis is working with an advisor to offload front-of-eye treatments like its dry eye drug Xiidra, which was approved in 2016 in the US but failed to get approval in Europe. Nothing is set in stone — Novartis could still decide to keep the assets, Bloomberg reported, and not all are included in a potential sale. For example, Lucentis, a treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration, isn’t up for grabs.

Anthony DeBoer, Synaffix VP of business development

Synaf­fix ex­pands ADC deal from 2022 with Macro­Gen­ics

The Dutch biotech Synaffix, which has been active in the deal space out of the gate in 2023, is building on a deal it made with MacroGenics last year.

Synaffix announced Tuesday it has expanded an agreement with the biotech MacroGenics to license out its antibody conjugation platform, called GlycoConnect, along with other pieces of Synaffix’s technology. The deal is designed to create several ADC programs. Both companies inked the first in February 2022, which netted Synaffix $586 million in upfront and milestone payments, with three programs being developed. Synaffix is eligible for royalties on commercial sales.

Exscientia CEO Andrew Hopkins at EUBIO22 (Rachel Kiki for Endpoints News)

Bris­tol My­ers pass­es on two Ex­sci­en­tia on­col­o­gy can­di­dates, but biotech to move them in­to clin­ic next year

Exscientia said it expanded its pipeline Tuesday morning, but the biotech is doing so without the help of a yearslong partner: Bristol Myers Squibb.

The Big Pharma has decided not to move forward with two oncology development candidates, Exscientia said. The AI-driven UK biotech plans to start testing the compounds in the clinic next year on its own, CEO Andrew Hopkins told Endpoints News.

“We took this as part of a routine portfolio prioritization happening in BMS and other Big Pharma at the moment,” Hopkins said.

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Cell­tri­on teams up with an­oth­er Ko­re­an bio­phar­ma in an­ti­body dis­cov­ery deal

Two Korean companies have signed a joint R&D discovery agreement, with the potential to earn in the nine-figures.

Clinical-stage biopharma Genuv has partnered up with Celltrion to discover antibodies using the former’s Shine Mouse platform, which they hope could potentially open up more R&D projects together in the future. There’s no upfront cash, but Genuv will receive milestone payments of up to $25 million if Celltrion decides to option a program into the clinic, and up to $680 million in milestones per program if its sales surpass $7.5 billion.

Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO (Laurent Gillieron/Keystone via AP Images)

Up­dat­ed: Pfiz­er to buy Seagen for $43B, end­ing long-run­ning M&A saga for biotech

Pfizer will buy cancer drugmaker Seagen for $43 billion in one of the industry’s biggest deals in years.

The deal, for $229 a share, ends a long-running drama. Pfizer appears to have won by being willing to pay up: In July, Merck was reported to be in talks for a deal at or over $40 billion that fell apart over price. In February, Pfizer was reportedly in talks with Seagen for more than $30 billion.

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Paul Hudson, Sanofi CEO (Romuald Meigneux/Sipa via AP Images)

Sanofi to pay $2.9B for Proven­tion Bio and its di­a­betes-de­lay­ing drug Tzield

Sanofi and Provention Bio have made a $2.9 billion deal for the French drugmaker to acquire the biotech, which last year won approval for its drug to delay the onset of type 1 diabetes.

Sanofi will pay $25 a share, the companies announced in a press release, a 273% premium over the New Jersey-based biotech’s closing price Friday. The companies already had a deal for Sanofi to co-promote the drug in the US, which they struck in October, that gave Sanofi first dibs on negotiating any licensing rights for the drug.

Silicon Valley Bank headquarters in Santa Clara, CA (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Up­dat­ed: Wor­ries over Sil­i­con Val­ley Bank rip­ple through tech and biotech star­tups, VCs

Worries about the future of SVB Financial Group, the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank, rippled through the startup sector on Friday.

The bank is a major financial services provider to healthcare and technology startups, and holds billions of dollars worth of deposits for the industry, including for many early-stage, private companies. There were reports Thursday and Friday that venture capitalists and startups were pulling money from the bank after it said it was raising funds to cover a loss, sparking fears of a broader run on the bank.

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Gary Nabel, ModeX Therapeutics CEO (Rob Tannenbaum for Endpoints News)

Ex-NIH, Sanofi lead­ers nab Mer­ck sup­port for their biotech’s Ep­stein-Barr vac­cine 

Gary Nabel, Anthony Fauci and other NIH leaders called for a vaccine to prevent Epstein-Barr virus-associated cancers in 2011. Nabel went on to lead scientific operations at Sanofi, where he worked with former NIH director Elias Zerhouni on programs that included early research on an EBV vaccine.

After leaving the French Big Pharma, they formed a new biotech, ModeX Therapeutics, and in-licensed the Sanofi intellectual property on their EBV work. Now, they’re teaming up with Merck to bring the vaccine candidate into the clinic next year for infectious mononucleosis (commonly referred to as mono), Nabel tells Endpoints News.

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