Just 6 weeks after striking a $2.3 billion deal to develop off-the-shelf cell therapies with Shoreline Biosciences, Gilead sub Kite Pharma has bounced back with another alliance — this time centered on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered invariant natural killer T (CAR-iNKT) cells using Appia Bio’s platform for allogeneic cell therapy.

Once again we don’t know what the upfront is here. But Appia’s cash draw, an equity investment and milestones weigh in together at up to $875 million.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,800+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

While this was not a week for earth-shattering news, there were certainly a lot of interesting tidbits. If you found this recap helpful, please recommend it to your friends and colleagues. We’ll see you on the other side of the long weekend.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,800+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN

As the close runner-up to Amgen’s Lumakras in the KRAS race, any data cut from Mirati’s adagrasib continues to draw scrutiny from analysts. And the latest batch of numbers from ASCO is a decidedly mixed bag.

While a quick comparison suggests that adagrasib spurred slightly more responses and led to a longer overall survival than Lumakras among a group of non-small cell lung cancer patients, its duration of response appears shorter and the safety profile continues to spark concern.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,800+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN

Catalyst Biosciences was down to five employees in March, and the biotech needed to do something after two rounds of layoffs, a nixed collaboration and a culling of its hemophilia program.

In came Vertex, with $60 million to buy up the South San Francisco biotech’s preclinical complement drugs, which target the system that bridges the body’s innate and adaptive immune response and a class most known for Ultomiris and Soliris. The deal includes CB 2782-PEG, the dry AMD drug that Biogen no longer wanted in March.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,800+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN

When Ann saw the first TV commercials for HIV medicine Dovato, she didn’t see herself represented. So the 74-year-old retired school administrator who’s been living with HIV since 1998, reached out to GSK’s ViiV Healthcare and asked why not?

Now Ann is one of three people starring in ViiV’s latest Dovato campaign called “Detect This.” The next-step evolution in the branded campaign plays on the word “detect” — often used in describing HIV status under control as undetectable — but in this case, uses the word as a directive for people to understand they can use fewer medicines.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,800+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN

As Covid-19 concerns are fading in the US, so is biopharma visibility. The annual Axios Harris Poll survey to determine and rank the 100 most top-of-mind brands in the US finds Moderna, which was No. 3 last year, not on the list at all for 2022, and Pfizer sinking 37 spots.

However, it’s not that Moderna or Pfizer did anything wrong, it’s just that Americans have moved on to other worries beyond Covid.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,800+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN