Drag­on­fly’s part­ner­ship with Ab­b­Vie is be­gin­ning to bear fruit.

Ab­b­Vie has se­lect­ed its first NK cell en­gager-based im­munother­a­py as part of the deal, trig­ger­ing an undis­closed opt-in pay­ment, the com­pa­nies an­nounced Tues­day. Ab­b­Vie will gain ex­clu­sive world­wide rights to de­vel­op and com­mer­cial­ize prod­ucts di­rect­ed to this first tar­get, which is al­so undis­closed, and Drag­on­fly be­comes el­i­gi­ble for fu­ture mile­stones and roy­al­ties.

“This opt-in, so soon af­ter launch­ing our col­lab­o­ra­tion, is a great vote of con­fi­dence,” Drag­on­fly CEO Bill Haney said in a state­ment. “We look for­ward to con­tin­ued suc­cess and rapid progress with the Ab­b­Vie team.”

The pair signed their col­lab­o­ra­tion back in No­vem­ber 2019. So far, all of Drag­on­fly’s col­lab­o­ra­tions have net­ted $800 mil­lion in up­front pay­ments and ear­ly mile­stones. The biotech is el­i­gi­ble for up to $17 bil­lion in to­tal mile­stones should it achieve them all.

Tues­day’s se­lec­tion comes out of Drag­on­fly’s TriN­KET plat­form, build­ing tri-spe­cif­ic NK cell en­gager ther­a­pies. Drag­on­fly has al­so signed on to three deals with Bris­tol My­ers Squibb, the most re­cent of which came last Ju­ly, and two with Mer­ck. — Max Gel­man

FDA grants Cog­ni­to break­through des­ig­na­tion in Alzheimer’s

Cog­ni­to Ther­a­peu­tics has re­ceived a break­through de­vice des­ig­na­tion for one of the tough­est fields in the in­dus­try — Alzheimer’s dis­ease.

The FDA hand­ed down the des­ig­na­tion Tues­day morn­ing, Cog­ni­to an­nounced, say­ing the agency is plan­ning to re­view its lead prod­uct for the treat­ment of cog­ni­tive and func­tion­al symp­toms as­so­ci­at­ed with Alzheimer’s.

Cog­ni­to says it has de­vel­oped a non-in­va­sive de­vice that us­es gam­ma fre­quen­cy tech­nol­o­gy to stem Alzheimer’s symp­toms. Re­searchers at the com­pa­ny say they found stim­u­lat­ing the brain at a spe­cif­ic fre­quen­cy had the ef­fect of re­ac­ti­vat­ing the im­mune sys­tem in the brain, cor­re­lat­ing with a re­duc­tion in amy­loid plaques and tau tan­gles.

In prac­tice, this could look like an Alzheimer’s pa­tient be­ing ex­posed to strobe lights and click­ing sounds. A study in mice ap­peared to show im­prove­ments in cog­ni­tive and mem­o­ry skills, per the New York Times.

With­in that study, light and sound de­liv­ered to mice at 40 hertz, or 40 flash­es or clicks per sec­ond, os­ten­si­bly syn­chro­nized with the rhythm of the brain’s gam­ma waves. That led to an in­crease in trash-clear­ing and im­mune-reg­u­lat­ing func­tions with­in the brains. — Max Gel­man

BIO chief Michelle Mc­Mur­ry-Heath con­demns Capi­tol vi­o­lence, paus­es po­lit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions

BIO pres­i­dent and CEO Michelle Mc­Mur­ry-Heath has been clear about the as­so­ci­a­tion’s po­si­tion on the mob vi­o­lence on Capi­tol Hill last week. On Mon­day, she took it one step fur­ther, an­nounc­ing that BIO will pause its po­lit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions for the time be­ing.

“As of to­day BIO will be paus­ing our po­lit­i­cal giv­ing so we can re­assess the cri­te­ria up­on which we sup­port po­lit­i­cal can­di­dates in the fu­ture. As a mem­ber­ship or­ga­ni­za­tion we owe it to our mem­bers to hear their voic­es in this im­por­tant de­ci­sion,” Mc­Mur­ry-Heath said in the state­ment.

“One of the five new strate­gic pil­lars that BIO an­nounced last fall is to be the voice of and for sci­ence and at its core sci­ence is the search for truth based on ev­i­dence. So it is very con­cern­ing that some elect­ed lead­ers last week chose to ig­nore facts and em­brace wide­ly dis­cred­it­ed con­spir­a­cies which in part led to the hor­rif­ic events at the Capi­tol,” she con­tin­ued.

Last week, the CEO joined many oth­er bio­phar­ma lead­ers in con­demn­ing the vi­o­lence. “It is sim­ply un­con­scionable for an an­gry mob, up­set by an elec­tion out­come to try to dis­en­fran­chise the votes of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans sim­ply be­cause their cho­sen can­di­date lost,” she said.

Je­re­my Levin, chair­man of BIO, post­ed a sim­i­lar­ly heat­ed re­sponse on Twit­ter on Jan 6.

I am rag­ing. Tell me why the great­est democ­ra­cy in the world would elect a cryp­to-dic­ta­tor, al­low him lie to the na­tion for 4 years, then launch a full out phys­i­cal as­sault on our in­sti­tu­tions- and un­til now not one of his Cab­i­net re­signed???? #cab­i­ne­tre­sign­now

— Je­re­my Levin (@jmaxlevin) Jan­u­ary 6, 2021

“Our mem­bers take this se­ri­ous­ly and so do we,” Mc­Mur­ry-Heath said in the state­ment. — Nicole De­Feud­is 

Ada­gene and NHLBI dis­cov­er new CAR-T can­di­date

Ada­gene and the Na­tion­al Heart, Lung, and Blood In­sti­tute say they’ve come up with a new kind of CAR-T can­di­date for re­nal cell car­ci­no­ma, based on an­ti­bod­ies dis­cov­ered by the Suzhou, Chi­na-based biotech.

The part­ners say the can­di­date is the first — that they’re aware of — to tar­get a hu­man en­doge­nous retro­virus (HERV) ex­pressed in the ma­jor­i­ty of clear cell kid­ney tu­mors. HERVs are rem­nants of an­cient germ-line in­fec­tions with ex­oge­nous retro­virus­es, and are es­ti­mat­ed to com­prise up to 8% of the hu­man genome.

The can­di­date was de­vel­oped in the lab of Richard Childs, chief of the NHLBI’s Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Trans­plan­ta­tion Im­munother­a­py. From here, the NIH will take over man­u­fac­tur­ing and clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment.

“This is an en­cour­ag­ing de­vel­op­ment that builds on decades of re­search in our quest to find ways to adapt and en­hance im­mune cells to tar­get and kill even the most ag­gres­sive can­cers,” Childs said in a state­ment. “I look for­ward to the eval­u­a­tion and hope­ful­ly the de­vel­op­ment of this nov­el CAR-T cell and oth­er an­ti­body-based ther­a­pies in clin­i­cal tri­als.”

The can­di­date was dis­cov­ered us­ing Ada­gene’s NEO­body tech, which is part of its Dy­nam­ic Pre­ci­sion Li­brary. Last Jan­u­ary, Ada­gene nabbed a $69 mil­lion Se­ries D to ad­vance its an­ti­body work. — Nicole De­Feud­is 

If Novartis learned one thing from its interaction with the FDA over its latest heart failure approval for Entresto, it was that missing a primary endpoint may not be the nail in the coffin. Now, Entresto has missed again on a late-stage study in high-risk heart patients, and it’s already sowing the seeds for a path forward regardless.

Novartis’ Entresto couldn’t best standard-of-care ramipril in staving off a composite of deaths and heart failure events in patients with left ventricular systolic dysfunction and/or pulmonary congestion who have had a prior heart attack, according to topline data from the Phase III PARADISE-MI study revealed Saturday at the virtual American College of Cardiology meeting.

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is cooling its jets in looking for new, potential Covid-19 treatments, at least in the near term.

An HHS spokesperson told Endpoints News via email, “to date, BARDA has obligated more than $9 billion for the development and/or purchase of 13 therapeutics, beginning in February 2020 with support to develop Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody therapeutic. Therapeutics are an important element of the COVID-19 response, and we are focused on the programs currently underway and/or in negotiation using the funds available to us.”

As the PDUFA date for their vaginal yeast infections quickly approaches, Scynexis is taking out a loan to ensure it can hit the ground running for a potential commercial launch.

Scynexis closed terms on a $60 million loan with Hercules Capital and Silicon Valley Bank, the New Jersey biotech announced Friday, with its ibrexafungerp candidate set for a June 1 PDUFA. Approval of the program is anticipated, the company said, after which the oral antifungal will be branded as Brexafemme.

When Bristol Myers Squibb signed off on its $13 billion acquisition of MyoKardia back in October, it was making a big bet that lead drug mavacamten could prove a game changer in cardiac myopathy. Now, with the drug up for FDA review, Bristol Myers is backing up its case with new quality of life data.

Patients dosed with myosin inhibitor mavacamten posted a clinically significant increase in scores on the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire, a catch-all summary of symptoms and quality of life markers, over placebo at 30 weeks, according to data from the Phase III EXPLORER-HCM study presented Saturday at the virtual American College of Cardiology meeting.

With a blockbuster rare disease giant in its sights in Alexion’s Soliris, small biotech Apellis has reason to think its competitor is worthy of the spotlight. Now, with the FDA on its side, Apellis will get its chance to be the David to Alexion’s Goliath.

The FDA on Friday approved Empaveli (pegcetacoplan), a C3 complement inhibitor the biotech thinks can prove a worthy challenger to Alexion’s C5 inhibitors Soliris and follow-up drug Ultomiris in rare disease paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH).