Pfiz­er has out-li­censed a pair of an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gates to Cam­bridge, MA-based Pyx­is On­col­o­gy.

Pyx­is is hand­ing over an un­spec­i­fied up­front pay­ment, mile­stones and a chunk of eq­ui­ty to Pfiz­er, and al­so gains rights to Pfiz­er’s ADC plat­form, “in­clud­ing var­i­ous pay­load class­es, link­er tech­nol­o­gy and site-spe­cif­ic con­ju­ga­tion tech­niques for the fu­ture de­vel­op­ment of ad­di­tion­al AD­Cs.”

Ronald Herb­st, the CSO at Long­wood-fund­ed Pyx­is, said:

The ear­ly gen­er­a­tions of AD­Cs demon­strat­ed sig­nif­i­cant po­ten­cy, but con­sid­er­able room re­mains for in­no­va­tion to gen­er­ate high­ly ef­fec­tive AD­Cs with an im­proved safe­ty pro­file. PYX-201 and PYX-203 rep­re­sent the next gen­er­a­tion of AD­Cs that use in­no­v­a­tive con­ju­ga­tion tech­nolo­gies.

— John Car­roll

Gilead, No­vo take NASH com­bo part­ner­ship in­to PhI­Ib

Gilead and No­vo Nordisk are ex­pand­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion in a field that’s had quite the rough and tum­ble scene late­ly.

The duo is en­gag­ing in fur­ther work in their clin­i­cal NASH deal, launch­ing a new Phase IIb study to eval­u­ate No­vo’s block­buster semaglu­tide and two ex­per­i­men­tal Gilead can­di­dates in the in­di­ca­tion. The tri­al will look at semaglu­tide alone and in com­bi­na­tion with the FXR ag­o­nist cilofex­or and the ACC in­hibitor fir­so­co­stat as part of the four-arm study.

Gilead and No­vo plan to en­roll about 440 pa­tients across all four arms, look­ing at the im­pact on liv­er fi­bro­sis im­prove­ment and NASH res­o­lu­tion. The tri­al will be dou­ble-blind­ed and place­bo-con­trolled.

Re­searchers will look to build off a Phase IIa tri­al, which showed semaglu­tide alone and in com­bi­na­tion with cilofex­or and/or fir­so­co­stat was well tol­er­at­ed in 108 peo­ple over 24 weeks. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, post-hoc analy­ses of ex­plorato­ry ef­fi­ca­cy end­points showed sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ments in he­pat­ic steato­sis and liv­er in­jury in the com­bo arm when com­pared to semaglu­tide alone.

Semaglu­tide has been ap­proved by the FDA to treat type 2 di­a­betes, but not in NASH. Nei­ther cilofex­or nor fir­so­co­stat have been ap­proved for any in­di­ca­tion. — Max Gel­man

Mer­ck ex­tends long-run­ning can­cer da­ta col­lab­o­ra­tion with M2GEN

Mer­ck has struck a deal with Tam­pa-based M2GEN which gives the phar­ma gi­ant ac­cess to its anony­mous da­ta bank gleaned from can­cer pa­tients at 18 par­tic­i­pat­ing can­cer clin­ics. Pa­tients agree to do­nate their clin­i­cal and mol­e­c­u­lar da­ta to M2GEN, which then leas­es it out to drug de­vel­op­ers.

This new 5-year deal builds on a col­lab­o­ra­tion that dates back to 2006 and gave Mer­ck some in­sights as it de­vel­oped Keytru­da. And re­searchers ex­pect they can con­tin­ue to use it for the next round of can­cer drugs in the clin­ic. — John Car­roll

As the House-passed bill to cap the monthly price of insulin at $35 nationwide makes its way for a Senate vote soon, Sanofi announced Wednesday morning that beginning next month it will cut the monthly price of its insulins for uninsured Americans to $35, down from $99 previously.

The announcement from Sanofi, which allows the uninsured to buy one or multiple Sanofi insulins (Lantus, Insulin Glargine U-100, Toujeo, Admelog, and Apidra) at $35 for a 30-day supply effective July 1, follows House passage (232-193) of the monthly cap in March, with just 12 Republicans voting in favor of the measure.

As Astellas continues its drive to build out its gene therapy portfolio and capabilities, a subsidiary of the Japanese pharma company has entered into a collaboration with a little-known Pittsburgh biotech.

Astellas-owned Mitobridge and Generian Pharmaceuticals announced on Wednesday that they will work together in a new deal for “undruggable” protein targets. Generian will net an undisclosed upfront payment and could get up to $180 million in milestones, should anything from its platform prove successful, as well as single-digit royalties on global net sales.

Three months separated from a disappointing readout of its Covid-19 vaccine, Icosavax is back with what it calls positive topline data for a different VLP vaccine candidate — although investors aren’t impressed.

IVX-121, a vaccine candidate for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), appeared to generate “robust” immune responses among both young and older adults, as measured by neutralizing antibodies, and appeared generally well-tolerated, Icosavax reported.