Low sales, high cost: Melin­ta slash­es HQ re­search staff as it strug­gles to grow an­tibi­otics rev­enue

Look to Melin­ta Ther­a­peu­tics for the lat­est sign of eco­nom­ic trou­ble in the an­tibi­otics field.

Ex­act­ly a year af­ter the Con­necti­cut drug­mak­er ex­e­cut­ed a $270 mil­lion pact to buy out The Med­i­cines Co’s in­fec­tious dis­ease group — one in a string of pipeline ex­pan­sion deals — the com­pa­ny is re­port­ed­ly clos­ing down its head­quar­ters and lay­ing off 22 out of 25 staff and spin­ning out re­search projects, the lo­cal New Haven Biz re­port­ed last week. The bulk of the cuts were in R&D.

John John­son

While Melin­ta con­firmed the lay­offs to the pa­per, it de­clined to ver­i­fy the clos­ing date of No­vem­ber 30 cit­ed by the news site’s sources (say­ing “no fi­nal plans to shut­ter the New Haven lo­ca­tion had been made”) or elab­o­rate on the job cuts hap­pen­ing at its North Car­oli­na, New Jer­sey and Illi­nois of­fices.

Over the past year, Melin­ta’s share price $ML­NT has plunged 85%.

The com­pa­ny has not re­turned our re­quest for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

“In the face of an ex­treme­ly chal­leng­ing time for the an­tibi­otics in­dus­try, Melin­ta has made the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion to sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce our in­vest­ment in dis­cov­ery re­search and are cur­rent­ly look­ing for strate­gic part­ners to take on these ac­tiv­i­ties, lo­cat­ed at our New Haven fa­cil­i­ty,” an emailed state­ment to New Haven Biz read.

Pe­ter Mil­li­gan

Melin­ta hint­ed at the re­or­ga­ni­za­tion in its Q3 call, in which in­ter­im CEO John John­son plain­ly ad­mit­ted to low­er-than-ex­pect­ed sales and high-than-ex­pect­ed costs. With the help of new­ly hired CFO Pe­ter Mil­li­gan, John­son is hop­ing to shed $50 mil­lion in op­er­at­ing ex­pens­es next year by look­ing to ex­ter­nal sources for in­no­va­tion and “re­fo­cus­ing the com­pa­ny on prod­uct launch­es.”

It’s yet an­oth­er alarm­ing con­fir­ma­tion of the com­mon wor­ry that an­tibi­ot­ic de­vel­op­ers face slim com­mer­cial prospects even af­ter they have over­come the of­ten lengthy reg­u­la­to­ry jour­ney. Big Phar­ma has large­ly bowed out of ba­sic re­search in the field, as ex­em­pli­fied in No­var­tis’ high-pro­file ex­it in re­cent months, though Genen­tech claimed a no­table ex­cep­tion with a pre­clin­i­cal can­di­date that its re­searchers say can rep­re­sent a new class for drug-re­sis­tant gram-neg­a­tive bac­te­ria.

In Melin­ta’s case, it took 17 years and sev­er­al CEOs to get an OK for Baxdela, which was launched this Jan­u­ary with “in­creas­ing mo­men­tum,” John­son said.

The ex­ecs, though, have toned down an­tic­i­pat­ed sales of Or­ba­tiv and Minocin — two of the three prod­ucts that came with the Med­i­cines Co deal — by a few mil­lion.

Ac­cord­ing to its web­site, Melin­ta was ap­ply­ing its dis­cov­ery plat­form on pro­grams in ac­ne and bac­te­r­i­al vagi­nosis as well as next-gen an­tibi­otics to com­bat “su­per­bugs” — a press­ing con­cern that the OECD warns will kill mil­lions glob­al­ly by 2050. Those pro­grams’ fate re­mains to be seen.

Image courtesy of The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Pro­tect­ing the glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem – what’s at stake?

We are living in a new era of healthcare that is rapidly advancing progress impacting patient outcomes and experiences. We’ve seen a remarkable pace of transformational innovation, applied research, and advanced clinical development over the last decade.

Despite this tremendous progress, there is much more work to be done, and patients are counting on us – now more than ever – to continue that momentum. At the heart of our industry is a focus on developing and delivering medicines for some of the world’s most challenging diseases, including those that have few or no effective treatments today.

Roger Perl­mut­ter lines up deals, fresh fund­ing at Eikon; Sec­ond RSV vac­cine ap­proved; Sev­er­al biotechs flash­ing red; and more

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.

As you come back to our website this weekend for ASCO news, don’t forget to check out our updated event lineup at BIO, which will cover everything from the current state of VC investing in biotech to top pharma R&D chiefs discussing how to make pipeline decisions.

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Grail’s blood test charts path for di­ag­nos­ing pa­tients sus­pect­ed of hav­ing can­cer in large study: #AS­CO23

Grail’s vision is simple but bold. The blood testing company has long held that people are often diagnosed with cancer too late. If seemingly healthy people were screened for early signs of the disease before symptoms appear, they may be able to get more effective treatments that nip cancer in the bud.

That premise is the basis of Grail’s commercial blood test, Galleri, which searches for the genetic fingerprints of cancer in the blood. The test, launched in 2021, reaped $55 million in sales last year, but now the company is setting its sights on a new market: patients suspected of having cancer due to symptoms such as abdominal pain, rectal bleeding or unexplained weight loss. Rather than administering expensive scans or conducting invasive biopsies right away, Grail hopes doctors will consider a simple blood test.

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Novartis headquarters in Basel, Switzerland (Kyle LaHucik for Endpoints News)

No­var­tis’ Kisqali pre­vents breast can­cer from com­ing back for longer — but can it best Eli Lil­ly’s Verzenio? #AS­CO23

CHICAGO — Novartis’ CDK4/6 inhibitor Kisqali helped early breast cancer patients stay cancer-free for longer after surgery, according to interim study results presented at ASCO.

In a Phase III study, Kisqali was added on top of endocrine therapy — the current standard treatment for early breast cancer patients. Kisqali reduced the risk of disease relapse by 25% compared with endocrine therapy alone in patients with Stage II or III HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.

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On­corus lays off most of its re­main­ing team, warns of wind-down as it takes one last shot at deal­mak­ing

Despite cutting its headcount, pipeline and lease late last year, Oncorus is still struggling to stay afloat and is now on the brink of bankruptcy or dissolution, the company revealed late Thursday.

The Andover, MA-based biotech is letting “substantially all of Oncorus’ workforce” go, after the board of directors approved the layoffs. CEO Ted Ashburn, COO/chief of staff Stephen Harbin and CMO John Goldberg are among the 55 to depart.

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GSK pro­motes rou­tine im­mu­niza­tions for adults amid post-pan­dem­ic vac­cine back­slide

GSK launched a new initiative on Thursday and committed up to $1 million in grant funding to improve adult routine vaccination rates.

While the pandemic spotlight was trained on the race for novel Covid-19 vaccines, other routine vaccination rates plummeted, raising concerns that missed doses may put children and even some adults at risk of preventable diseases such as measles or shingles. The World Health Organization last year reported the largest drop in childhood vaccinations in roughly three decades.

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Tammie Denyse speaks up about Black women and breast cancer inequity in Gilead's first TikTok campaign. (Gilead Sciences)

Gilead joins Tik­Tok with on­col­o­gy aware­ness cam­paign fea­tur­ing di­verse group of can­cer ad­vo­cates

Gilead Sciences is taking over the opening page on TikTok for the next two weeks. A Gilead-sponsored video, featuring cancer advocates talking about equity and other issues, will show up as the landing page, called the “For You” page, for millions of TikTok watchers.

The cancer awareness campaign will begin on Monday and run for two weeks, a Gilead spokesperson told Endpoints News. The TikTok ad debut is timed around the ASCO medical conference, but the work is aimed more broadly at healthcare professionals, as well as people touched by cancer and people interested in advancing Black and general health equity.

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Stephen MacMillan, Hologic CEO (Photo by Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit)

Il­lu­mi­na names Ho­log­ic CEO as new board mem­ber and chair

Illumina’s board appointed two new members, including Hologic CEO Stephen MacMillan as the non-executive chair, a move that followed a proxy fight that saw shareholders oust the company’s board chair.

The DNA sequencing company also appointed Scott Ullem, the CFO of Edwards Lifesciences, to the board, according to a company statement.

Illumina’s plans to add two new board members came as Carl Icahn waged a board proxy campaign culminating with shareholders electing his candidate, Andrew Teno, over board chair John Thompson. Illumina CEO Francis deSouza survived a threat to his board seat by securing more than twice the shareholder votes than his challenger. Another Illumina candidate, Robert Epstein, was also elected and remained on the board.

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Catal­ent makes ad­di­tion­al lay­offs at In­di­ana fa­cil­i­ty

Contract manufacturer Catalent is making more staff cuts at one of its locations in the US amid dramatic corrective actions it’s been taking over the past few months.

In an email to Endpoints News, a Catalent spokesperson confirmed the company is making “a number of personnel changes” at a manufacturing facility in Bloomington, IN. While a specific number was not given to Endpoints, several local media outlets, including Indiana Public Media and the Bloomington Herald-Times, have put the number of layoffs at 150. No postings have been made to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development’s WARN notice.

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