Ear­ly in 2016 the UK’s Atopix Ther­a­peu­tics was forced to ad­mit that its lead drug, OC459, had failed a mid-stage study for atopic der­mati­tis. But it’s al­so been build­ing on a pos­i­tive set of mid-stage da­ta for eosinophilic asth­ma, and to­day Italy’s Chiesi has bagged the drug and the com­pa­ny in an $82 mil­lion ac­qui­si­tion deal.

Atopix has been square­ly fo­cused on a hot spot in asth­ma re­search. Eosinophilic asth­ma — which is par­tic­u­lar­ly se­vere — is suf­fered by about 40% of the over­all pop­u­la­tion. And it’s been at­tract­ing some pow­er­house at­ten­tion from the top play­ers in the field al­so in­ter­est­ed in Atopix’s fo­cus on a CRTh2 an­tag­o­nist.

The ac­qui­si­tion now puts Chiesi square­ly in the path of the gi­ant No­var­tis $NVS, which al­so has a CRTh2 an­tag­o­nist in de­vel­op­ment. Now in Phase III with a sched­ule to launch in asth­ma in 2019, No­var­tis has been pro­mot­ing fe­vip­iprant as a like­ly game-chang­er in asth­ma, though its one of sev­er­al eosinophil treat­ments now an­gling for the lead in the pipeline.

Boul­der, CO-based Ar­ray Bio­Phar­ma has post­ed pos­i­tive mid-stage da­ta on its own CRTh2 pill AR­RY-502, back in 2014. And As­traZeneca (ben­ral­izum­ab), Glax­o­SmithK­line Nu­cala (mepolizum­ab) and Te­va have all been an­gling for a share of the asth­ma mar­ket with eosoniphilic an­ti­bod­ies that have block­buster po­ten­tial.

Re­port­ing in the pres­ti­gious pages of The Lancet, in­ves­ti­ga­tors say that No­var­tis’ CRTh2 an­tag­o­nist – now in Phase III with a 2019 launch date planned – dra­mat­i­cal­ly re­duced lev­els of eosoniphils. Adding the drug to stan­dard of care mas­sive­ly re­duced the lev­els of eosinophils, which dropped from an av­er­age of 5.4% to 1.1% — near­ly nor­mal – in the tri­al, which en­rolled a to­tal of 61 pa­tients.

Atopix has a di­verse group of back­ers, in­clud­ing SR One, Welling­ton Part­ners, SV Life Sci­ences and MPM Cap­i­tal, Besse­mer Ven­ture Part­ners and Red Abbey Ven­ture Part­ners

There are two updates on the lawsuit against Purdue Pharma over its role in fueling the opioid epidemic, as the Sackler family threatens to walk away from their pledge to pay out $3 billion if a bankruptcy judge does not stop outstanding state lawsuits against them. At the same time, the company has asked permission to pay millions in bonuses to select employees.

Purdue filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy this week as part of its signed resolution to over 2,000 lawsuits. The deal would see the Sackler family that owns Purdue give $3 billion from their personal wealth and the company turned into a trust committed to curbing and reversing overdoses.

The sign is still there, a quaint reminder of whitewashed concrete not 5 miles from Genentech’s sprawling, chrome-and-glass campus: South Francisco The Industrial City. 

The city keeps the old sign, first erected in 1923, as a tourist site and a kind of civic memento to the days it packed meat, milled lumber and burned enough steel to earn the moniker “Smokestack of the Peninsula.” But the real indication of where you are and how much has changed both in San Francisco and in the global economy since a couple researchers and investors rented out an empty warehouse 40 years ago comes in a far smaller blue sign, resembling a Rotary Club post, off the highway: South San Francisco, The Birthplace of Biotech.

While Novartis painstakingly works to mop up the stench of the data manipulation scandal associated with its expensive gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) Zolgensma— rival Biogen is attempting to expand the use of its SMA therapy, Spinraza. 

The US drugmaker $BIIB secured US approval for Spinraza for use in the often fatal genetic disease in 2016. The approval covered a broad range of patients with infantile-onset (most likely to develop Type 1) SMA. 

After months of buzz from both sides of the aisle, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will today introduce her plan to allow the federal government to negotiate prices for 250 prescription drugs, setting up a showdown with a pharmaceutical industry working overtime to prevent it.

The need to limit drug prices is a rare point of agreement between President Trump and Democrats, although the president has yet to comment on the proposal and will likely face pressure to back a more conservative option or no bill at all. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is reportedly lobbying his fellow party members on a more modest proposal he negotiated with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden in July.