News brief­ing: No­var­tis hands off NASH drug to biotech col­lab­o­ra­tor, al­so plans to build new Basel pro­duc­tion unit

Af­ter build­ing up its work on NASH, No­var­tis is hand­ing over one of its can­di­dates to Boston Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

The pri­vate biotech, which didn’t dis­cuss terms, gets the new­ly dubbed BOS-580, an FGF21 drug. And they get to launch a clin­i­cal for­ay in­to a field marked by mul­ti­ple set­backs over the last 2 years.

“No­var­tis has de­signed the BOS-580 prod­uct can­di­date with a dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed pro­file,” says Boston Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals CEO Robert Arm­strong, who grabbed 3 can­di­dates from No­var­tis back in 2018. Boston Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals will now jump in­to a NASH niche that in­cludes Akero $AKRO and 89bio $ETNB. — John Car­roll

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