Lu­ca Santarel­li moved quick­ly af­ter spin­ning out Vec­tivBio from Ther­a­chon, get­ting an IPO set­tled in less than two years. On Tues­day, he con­tin­ued charg­ing for­ward with a new buy­out that will see Vec­tivBio ex­pand its pipeline sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the next year and a half.

Vec­tivBio has ac­quired Comet Ther­a­peu­tics for an undis­closed eq­ui­ty and cash sum, the biotech an­nounced Tues­day, aim­ing to tar­get a swath of rare meta­bol­ic dis­eases. The goal is to hit the ground run­ning, Santarel­li told End­points News, with four new pro­grams ex­pect­ed to launch at once and plans to en­ter the clin­ic in 18 months.

“This deal is im­por­tant for us but al­so some­thing we’ve been plan­ning for a long time,” Santarel­li told End­points.

In ad­di­tion to the sums paid up­front, Vec­tivBio could be on the hook for more eq­ui­ty and cash pay­ments should the new projects reach cer­tain mile­stones.

As their teams start work­ing to­geth­er, Vec­tivBio and Comet will go af­ter a fam­i­ly of con­di­tions known as in­her­it­ed meta­bol­ic dis­eases, or IMDs. These ge­net­ic dis­or­ders re­sult in in­fants be­ing un­able to prop­er­ly con­vert food in­to en­er­gy, re­sult­ing in the buildup of tox­ic metabo­lites and some­times life-threat­en­ing con­di­tions that have lim­it­ed treat­ment op­tions.

Comet, how­ev­er, has de­vel­oped a plat­form to at­tack these dis­eases with a “unique” bit of chem­istry, Santarel­li said. By fo­cus­ing on coen­zyme A, an en­zyme im­pli­cat­ed in many meta­bol­ic path­ways, re­searchers the­o­rized a way to re­store its nor­mal func­tion while de­liv­er­ing pay­loads spe­cif­ic to each IMD.

“It al­lows CoA to be used as a back­bone,” Santarel­li said of the Comet tech­nol­o­gy. “It al­lows for sys­temic ad­min­is­tra­tion and ex­po­sure, al­lows for sys­temic in­te­gra­tion and can car­ry var­i­ous car­goes in­to the cells.”

The first pro­gram that will come out of the ac­qui­si­tion will tar­get or­gan­ic acid dis­or­ders such as methyl­malonic acidemia and pro­pi­onic acidemia, Santarel­li added. Their goal is to de­liv­er car­go that can stim­u­late the dis­reg­u­lat­ed meta­bol­ic path­ways.

Vec­tivBio got start­ed back in 2019, spin­ning out from Ther­a­con af­ter Pfiz­er bought it out for $340 mil­lion up­front and $470 mil­lion in po­ten­tial mile­stones. The biotech al­most im­me­di­ate­ly got to work on a Phase II drug for short bow­el syn­drome, and Santarel­li raised $110 mil­lion last Oc­to­ber to get the pro­gram through Phase III.

He fol­lowed that up with an IPO ear­li­er this year, and the com­pa­ny is ex­pect­ing topline re­sults for SBS in­testi­nal fail­ure in 2023. But with the Comet ac­qui­si­tion Tues­day, Santarel­li is start­ing work on Vec­tivBio’s next chap­ter in the mean­time.

Comet launched back in 2018 and re­ceived $28.5 mil­lion in a Se­ries A in June 2019. The Cam­bridge, MA-based biotech has seen in­vest­ment from Sofinno­va Part­ners, INKEF Cap­i­tal, Canaan and Mis­sion Bio­Cap­i­tal.

With rumors swirling about a potential buyout of biotech Acceleron and its lead PAH drug sotatercept, market watchers have been keeping close tabs on industry movers and shakers due up for an expensive bolt-on. According to a new report, it appears Merck may be the one.

Merck is in “advanced talks” on a deal to acquire Cambridge, MA-based Acceleron in what previous reports pegged as a potential $11 billion buyout, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. A deal could come as early as this week, according to the Journal.

Pfizer and BioNTech said Tuesday they submitted to FDA positive data from a Phase II/III trial of their Covid-19 vaccine in children aged 5 to less than 12 years old.

A formal EUA submission for the vaccine in these children is expected to follow “in the coming weeks,” the companies said in a statement.

The trial of 2,268 healthy participants aged 5 to less than 12 years old showed the vaccine was safe and elicited robust neutralizing antibody responses using a two-dose regimen of 10 μg doses, which is one-third the dose that’s administered to adults.

As a 12% shareholder of ViiV Healthcare, Japan’s Shionogi has commanded a much lower profile than its fellow owners, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer. But behind the scenes, it’s played an outsized role in the development of ViiV’s HIV drugs, coming up with the two top programs — the integrase inhibitors dolutegravir and cabotegravir — currently in ViiV’s portfolio.

And it’s time for round three.

Sanofi is throwing in the towel on mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines.

The French drugmaker will halt development on its unmodified mRNA Covid-19 shot despite what it said were positive Phase I/II results, a spokesperson told Endpoints News on Tuesday morning. Sanofi said the reason it’s stopping the Covid-19 mRNA program, developed in partnership with its new $3.2 billion acquisition Translate Bio, is because the market is too crowded.