News brief­ing: Bausch Health clos­ing in on deal to ac­quire Al­le­gro as­sets; PharmAbcine strikes deal with Sam­sung Bi­o­log­ics to de­vel­op an­ti­body pro­gram

Bausch Health is clos­ing in on a deal that would al­low it to buy out all of Al­le­gro Oph­thalmics’ eye-re­lat­ed as­sets — in­clud­ing the rights to lead can­di­date risute­ganib — for $50 mil­lion.

The pay­ment would be made in two tranch­es: $10 mil­lion at sign­ing, and $40 mil­lion in 2021.

Risute­ganib is in clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment for in­ter­me­di­ate dry Age-re­lat­ed Mac­u­lar De­gen­er­a­tion (AMD). It’s ex­pect­ed to en­ter two con­cur­rent Phase III tri­als for that in­di­ca­tion in the next year. The drug is al­so be­ing test­ed in pa­tients with di­a­bet­ic mac­u­lar ede­ma (DME), and last year met the pri­ma­ry end­point in a Phase II study, with 48% of pa­tients gain­ing 8 or more let­ters in vi­su­al acu­ity from base­line at week 28, com­pared to 7% in the con­trol group at week 12.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER