Ra­maswamy’s Der­ma­vant bags GSK’s PhI­II-ready pso­ri­a­sis drug in $330M deal — eye­ing a ma­jor league con­test

Vivek Ra­maswamy got start­ed in biotech pay­ing a pit­tance for a failed Alzheimer’s drug at Glax­o­SmithK­line — which flopped mis­er­ably in Phase III. Now one of his biotech com­pa­nies is go­ing back to GSK for a new drug to put in the late-stage pipeline, but the pen­ny ante game is over.

Der­ma­vant, helmed by Cel­gene vet Jack­ie Fouse, has inked a $330 mil­lion deal to buy the Phase III-ready tap­inarof (GSK2894512), with close to $200 mil­lion of that com­ing in an up­front pay­ment. The drug has scored pos­i­tive Phase II da­ta, putting it in­to the line­up of ex­per­i­men­tal drugs fol­low­ing Dupix­ent from Sanofi and Re­gen­eron. And that will set the bar for suc­cess in pso­ri­a­sis and atopic der­mati­tis at a very high lev­el.

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