No­var­tis’ block­buster Cosen­tyx is seek­ing ap­proval in an­oth­er in­di­ca­tion, and the com­pa­ny re­port­ed pos­i­tive ear­ly Phase II­Ib re­sults Thurs­day.

Look­ing to re­duce joint lin­ing in­flam­ma­tion in pso­ri­at­ic arthri­tis, Cosen­tyx saw ben­e­fits against place­bo af­ter 12 weeks. Though No­var­tis didn’t pro­vide any num­bers in this ear­ly look, the com­pa­ny said the drug showed “sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fit” on its way to meet­ing the pri­ma­ry end­point.

No­var­tis is as­sess­ing the spe­cif­ic in­flam­ma­tion Cosen­tyx is try­ing to treat, known as syn­ovi­tis, us­ing an ul­tra­sound test. The drug­mak­er ex­pects to re­lease the full 24-week da­ta in 2021.

Cosen­tyx was No­var­tis’ best­seller in the first half of this year, tal­ly­ing near­ly $1.9 bil­lion in glob­al sales. It al­so sold more than any oth­er No­var­tis prod­uct in all of 2019, net­ting the Swiss phar­ma more than $3.5 bil­lion last year, up 25% from 2018.

The drug, an IL-17A in­hibitor, is cur­rent­ly ap­proved across four in­di­ca­tions pso­ri­a­sis, pso­ri­at­ic arthri­tis, anky­los­ing spondyli­tis and non-ra­di­ograph­ic ax­i­al spondy­loarthri­tis. It’s fac­ing po­ten­tial R&D com­pe­ti­tion in the pso­ri­a­sis space from Ab­b­Vie’s Hu­mi­ra suc­ces­sor Skyrizi and UCB’s bimek­izum­ab. — Max Gel­man

Io­n­is bags $75M mile­stone as Pfiz­er kicks off PhI­Ib for car­dio drug

Pfiz­er has treat­ed the first pa­tient of a Phase IIb study of vu­panors­en, the ANGPTL3-tar­get­ing an­ti­sense oligonu­cleotide it li­censed from Io­n­is a year ago.

For Io­n­is, that means re­ceiv­ing a $75 mil­lion mile­stone pay­ment and sit­ting back to let the phar­ma gi­ant han­dle every­thing from here on out.

The goal is to en­roll 260 pa­tients with el­e­vat­ed non-HDL cho­les­terol and triglyc­erides who are re­ceiv­ing a sta­ble dose of a statin. The drug met the pri­ma­ry end­point of sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tions in triglyc­erides lev­els in Phase IIa, which tar­get­ed those with hy­per­triglyc­eridemia, type 2 di­a­betes and non-al­co­holic fat­ty liv­er dis­ease (NAFLD).

In the new tri­al, in­ves­ti­ga­tors will be eval­u­at­ing mul­ti­ple dos­es and fo­cus on change in non-HDL-C. — Am­ber Tong

Cal­i­for­nia cy­tom­e­try play­er rais­es $120M in Se­ries D

Cytek Bio­sciences has a whole new heap of cash to play with.

The Fre­mont, CA-based biotech has closed a $120 mil­lion Se­ries D round, it an­nounced Thurs­day, that will be used to ex­pand its glob­al in­fra­struc­ture. Cytek fo­cus­es its re­search on flow cy­tom­e­try, a cell analy­sis tech­nique that Cytek hopes can pro­vide bet­ter di­ag­nos­tic tools for can­cer and cell bi­ol­o­gy.

“We are com­mit­ted to ad­vanc­ing the scope, reach and ca­pa­bil­i­ties of flow cy­tom­e­try — and to pro­vid­ing re­searchers and clin­i­cians around the globe with the tools they need to im­prove pa­tient treat­ments,” CEO Wen­bin Jiang said in a state­ment.

Thurs­day’s round was co-led by RA Cap­i­tal and Hill­house Cap­i­tal, with Or­biMed and LYFE Cap­i­tal al­so chip­ping in. RA and Hill­house have al­so joined Cytek’s board of di­rec­tors.

Cytek says its pro­pri­etary plat­form of­fers a more com­plete pic­ture of all the dif­fer­ent cel­lu­lar play­ers in the im­mune sys­tem than pre­vi­ous cy­tom­e­try ef­forts. — Max Gel­man

89bio said its drug was better than placebo at lessening fibrosis without worsening nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, in two of three dose groups.

The San Francisco biotech said it thinks the Phase IIb data pave the way for a potential Phase III, following in the footsteps of another biotech in its drug class, Akero Therapeutics. To fund a late-stage study, CEO Rohan Palekar told Endpoints News 89bio “would need to raise additional capital,” with the company having about $188 million at the end of last year.