Vas Narasimhan, Novartis CEO (Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

No­var­tis of­floads five eye drugs in deal worth up to $175M

Eye care phar­ma com­pa­ny Har­row said this morn­ing that it’s ac­quir­ing the US rights to five dif­fer­ent drugs from the Swiss phar­ma No­var­tis for $130 mil­lion up­front, with $45 mil­lion more if one of the drugs lands on the mar­ket.

If the deal goes through, Har­row will hold ex­clu­sive use in the US for the four eye drop prod­ucts and one in­jectable drug.

The ad­di­tion­al $45 mil­lion will come if the steroid in­jec­tion Tries­ence hits the mar­ket, which is ex­pect­ed in the sec­ond half of next year, Har­row said.

“As­sum­ing this trans­ac­tion clos­es dur­ing the first quar­ter of 2023, Har­row ex­pects 2023 net rev­enues to be be­tween $135 mil­lion and $143 mil­lion and ad­just­ed EBIT­DA to be be­tween $44 mil­lion and $50 mil­lion, with both net rev­enues and ad­just­ed EBIT­DA ramp­ing up dur­ing 2024 and be­yond,” Mark Baum, chair­man and CEO of Har­row, which al­so owns Im­prim­is­Rx, said in a state­ment.

But it won’t hap­pen right away once the deal is done: No­var­tis can con­tin­ue to sell the drugs in the US for six months and then trans­fer all net prof­its to Har­row. Af­ter the six months, Har­row will out­source the man­u­fac­tur­ing of the drugs.

Out­side of the US, No­var­tis will con­tin­ue to sell the drugs ex­clu­sive­ly.

The five FDA-ap­proved oph­thalmic prod­ucts are Ilevro and Nevanac, which re­lieve in­flam­ma­tion in the eye af­ter cataract surgery; Vig­amox, which kills off bac­te­r­i­al con­junc­tivi­tis; Maxidex, a steroid eye drop for in­flam­ma­tion; and Tries­ence, which is an in­jec­tion that treats cer­tain oph­thalmic dis­eases.

This isn’t the first time Har­row has snatched up US rights to No­var­tis drugs. In De­cem­ber 2021, Har­row ac­quired the rights to four FDA-ap­proved eye drops for $14 mil­lion.

Har­row is an eye care phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny ex­clu­sive­ly fo­cused on oph­thalmic ther­a­pies. It came on­to the scene in 2011 and list­ed on Nas­daq for the first time in 2013, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny web­site. Since its found­ing in 2011 with an $8 mil­lion in­vest­ment, it en­tered in­to a $15 mil­lion loan agree­ment with Life Sci­ences Al­ter­na­tive Fund­ing, com­plet­ed a $12 mil­lion eq­ui­ty of­fer­ing in 2016 and an­oth­er $10 mil­lion one in 2017.

The sell-off could be part of phar­ma gi­ant No­var­tis’ down­siz­ing of its oph­thal­mol­o­gy arm. Ac­cord­ing to a re­port from last month, No­var­tis said pri­vate eq­ui­ty firms could spend up to $5 bil­lion on its oph­thal­mol­o­gy unit alone. In Au­gust, CEO Vas Narasimhan an­nounced the com­pa­ny would spin off gener­ics unit San­doz.

Har­row, which saw its stock price rise 17% to­day, made two oth­er an­nounce­ments too: it priced an un­der­writ­ten reg­is­tered of­fer­ing of 2.3 mil­lion shares of its com­mon stock at a price of $10.52 per share for gross pro­ceeds of $25 mil­lion. And it be­gan an un­der­writ­ten reg­is­tered pub­lic of­fer­ing of $100 mil­lion in ag­gre­gate se­nior notes due in 2027.

Image courtesy of The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Pro­tect­ing the glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem – what’s at stake?

We are living in a new era of healthcare that is rapidly advancing progress impacting patient outcomes and experiences. We’ve seen a remarkable pace of transformational innovation, applied research, and advanced clinical development over the last decade.

Despite this tremendous progress, there is much more work to be done, and patients are counting on us – now more than ever – to continue that momentum. At the heart of our industry is a focus on developing and delivering medicines for some of the world’s most challenging diseases, including those that have few or no effective treatments today.

Roger Perl­mut­ter lines up deals, fresh fund­ing at Eikon; Sec­ond RSV vac­cine ap­proved; Sev­er­al biotechs flash­ing red; and more

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

As you come back to our website this weekend for ASCO news, don’t forget to check out our updated event lineup at BIO, which will cover everything from the current state of VC investing in biotech to top pharma R&D chiefs discussing how to make pipeline decisions.

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Take­da ax­es gene ther­a­py deal with Po­sei­da Ther­a­peu­tics amid broad­er re­think

Less than two years after Takeda inked a collaboration with Poseida Therapeutics to develop six liver-directed and hematopoietic stem cell-directed in vivo gene therapies, Takeda will end the partnership on July 30, the company confirmed to Endpoints News.

The breakup is not unexpected, coming on the heels of Takeda’s April announcement that it planned to stop discovery and preclinical work in AAV gene therapy, as well as research and preclinical work on rare hematology. A representative for Takeda confirmed that the partnership ended because of the company’s decision to stop that work.

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Bris­tol My­er­s' Op­di­vo keeps can­cer at bay in more lym­phoma pa­tients than Seagen's Ad­cetris in PhI­II: #AS­CO23

CHICAGO — In a study pitting Seagen’s Adcetris against Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo in newly diagnosed patients with advanced classic Hodgkin lymphoma, a greater proportion of those who received Opdivo saw no cancer growth at one year compared to those who got Adcetris.

In addition, patients in the Opdivo arm of the Phase III trial reported reduced toxicities, according to lead investigator Alex Herrera, a hematologist-oncologist at City of Hope’s cancer cancer in Duarte, CA. Notably, the trial included more than 200 children across both arms. Generally, more than half of children with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma receive radiation therapy, but in this trial, dubbed SWOG S1826, only a handful of patients in the two arms received radiotherapy, sparing many children from long-term side effects of radiation.

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Full TIG­IT da­ta from Gilead, Ar­cus show low­er PFS rates than De­cem­ber read­out: #AS­CO23

CHICAGO — Gilead and Arcus unveiled a fuller snapshot of a Phase II study testing their experimental cancer immunotherapy combo that showed lower progression-free survival rates than its previous update, results that are likely to spark further debate over the closely-watched clinical trial.

Last December, the anti-TIGIT/anti-PD-L1 combo, positioned as a first-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer, recorded data that drew mixed reactions. The latest analysis, presented Saturday afternoon at ASCO, included only a handful more patients than the previous update, but PFS rates fell — in one cohort by nearly three months.

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Servi­er’s vo­rasi­denib stalls pro­gres­sion of brain can­cer by 61% in piv­otal PhI­II IN­DI­GO study: #AS­CO23

An experimental pill from Servier Pharmaceuticals showed potentially practice-changing results in a narrow group of brain cancer patients, cutting the risk of their cancers progressing by 61%, according to a late-stage clinical trial.

The drug, vorasidenib, is a precision medicine that only works in certain people whose cancer carries mutations in one of two genes called IDH1/2. Doctors hope that the therapy will delay the need for chemotherapy or radiation, which are often used to combat relapses in patients who’ve previously undergone surgery to remove brain tumors.

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GSK pro­motes rou­tine im­mu­niza­tions for adults amid post-pan­dem­ic vac­cine back­slide

GSK launched a new initiative on Thursday and committed up to $1 million in grant funding to improve adult routine vaccination rates.

While the pandemic spotlight was trained on the race for novel Covid-19 vaccines, other routine vaccination rates plummeted, raising concerns that missed doses may put children and even some adults at risk of preventable diseases such as measles or shingles. The World Health Organization last year reported the largest drop in childhood vaccinations in roughly three decades.

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Tammie Denyse speaks up about Black women and breast cancer inequity in Gilead's first TikTok campaign. (Gilead Sciences)

Gilead joins Tik­Tok with on­col­o­gy aware­ness cam­paign fea­tur­ing di­verse group of can­cer ad­vo­cates

Gilead Sciences is taking over the opening page on TikTok for the next two weeks. A Gilead-sponsored video, featuring cancer advocates talking about equity and other issues, will show up as the landing page, called the “For You” page, for millions of TikTok watchers.

The cancer awareness campaign will begin on Monday and run for two weeks, a Gilead spokesperson told Endpoints News. The TikTok ad debut is timed around the ASCO medical conference, but the work is aimed more broadly at healthcare professionals, as well as people touched by cancer and people interested in advancing Black and general health equity.

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Stephen MacMillan, Hologic CEO (Photo by Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit)

Il­lu­mi­na names Ho­log­ic CEO as new board mem­ber and chair

Illumina’s board appointed two new members, including Hologic CEO Stephen MacMillan as the non-executive chair, a move that followed a proxy fight that saw shareholders oust the company’s board chair.

The DNA sequencing company also appointed Scott Ullem, the CFO of Edwards Lifesciences, to the board, according to a company statement.

Illumina’s plans to add two new board members came as Carl Icahn waged a board proxy campaign culminating with shareholders electing his candidate, Andrew Teno, over board chair John Thompson. Illumina CEO Francis deSouza survived a threat to his board seat by securing more than twice the shareholder votes than his challenger. Another Illumina candidate, Robert Epstein, was also elected and remained on the board.

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