While gene ther­a­py com­pa­nies re­joice as the sec­tor gains trac­tion with ap­provals and a flur­ry of M&A ac­tiv­i­ty, one play­er is feel­ing the heat.

Back in 2015, Voy­ager Ther­a­peu­tics joined forces with Sanofi Gen­zyme in a deal worth up to $845 mil­lion ($100 mil­lion up­front + a po­ten­tial $745 mil­lion in mile­stones) to co-de­vel­op gene ther­a­pies for se­vere cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem dis­or­ders. But two years lat­er, the French drug­mak­er re­treat­ed, elect­ing to not pick up the op­tion to work on Voy­ager’s Parkin­son’s dis­ease pro­gram. (Last year, the FDA dis­ap­point­ed Voy­ager, telling the com­pa­ny that it was not open to an ac­cel­er­at­ed fil­ing on the Parkin­son’s drug on the ba­sis of Phase II da­ta — in­stead re­quir­ing an ad­di­tion­al piv­otal study.)

Sanofi Gen­zyme’s re­treat now re­sem­bles a de­ser­tion.

On Mon­day, Voy­ager $VY­GR said Sanofi Gen­zyme is walk­ing away from op­tions to ac­quire US co-com­mer­cial­iza­tion rights and ex-US de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion rights to ex­per­i­men­tal Hunt­ing­ton’s dis­ease drug VY-HTT01 and to Friedre­ich’s atax­ia pro­gram VY-FXN01; and a fu­ture Voy­ager CNS or­phan pro­gram. In ad­di­tion, Voy­ager and Sanofi Gen­zyme’s al­liance on SMA has al­so been ter­mi­nat­ed —  the in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights of the pro­gram are be­ing re­turned/ex­clu­sive­ly li­censed to Sanofi Gen­zyme.

Con­se­quent­ly, Voy­ager has agreed to give $10 mil­lion up­front to Sanofi Gen­zyme, and an ad­di­tion­al $10 mil­lion mile­stone pay­ment up­on the po­ten­tial fil­ing of an ap­pli­ca­tion to test in hu­mans the Hunt­ing­ton’s dis­ease drug, VY-HTT01 or, cer­tain back­up com­pounds, as well as po­ten­tial roy­al­ties. In ad­di­tion, Voy­ager is al­so of­fer­ing Sanofi Gen­zyme ex­clu­sive dibs to se­lect AAV cap­sids from its ar­se­nal of drugs in de­vel­op­ment in up to two non-CNS in­di­ca­tions.

Re­cent­ly, Voy­ager has been busy shop­ping for oth­er part­ners. It has inked deals with Ab­b­Vie and Neu­ro­crine this year.

On Mon­day, Voy­ager trans­ferred the ex-US rights to the Sanofi-aban­doned Friedre­ich’s atax­ia pro­gram to Neu­ro­crine. The com­pa­ny al­so sig­naled that it plans to part­ner out its ALS gene ther­a­py, VY-SOD102, (and no longer plans to file an IND for it this year), to fo­cus its re­sources on Hunt­ing­ton’s.

“While it is un­clear ex­act­ly who might be look­ing to in-li­cense this pro­gram, Bio­gen might serve as an in­ter­est­ing can­di­date giv­en their ex­ist­ing work on SOD1 with their an­ti­sense oligonu­cleotide (ASO), tofersen, and close prox­im­i­ty giv­en both com­pa­nies are based in Cam­bridge. How­ev­er, if Bio­gen were to do this deal it might al­so be an ear­ly sig­nal to in­vestors that they view gene ther­a­py as strong al­ter­na­tive to their ASO port­fo­lio, po­ten­tial­ly ac­cept­ing that Zol­gens­ma is go­ing to be a strong com­peti­tor in SMA,” Baird’s Bri­an Sko­r­ney wrote in a note.

So­cial im­age: Shut­ter­stock

About five years ago, Amit Etkin had a breakthrough.

The Stanford neurologist, a soft-spoken demi-prodigy who became a professor while still a resident, had been obsessed for a decade with how to better define psychiatric disorders. Drugs for depression or bipolar disorder didn’t work for many patients with the conditions, and he suspected the reason was how traditional diagnoses didn’t actually get at the heart of what was going on in a patient’s brain.

While falling behind the biggest PD-(L)1 drugs in terms of sales, Roche has looked to carve out a space for its Tecentriq with a growing expertise in lung cancer. The drug will now take an early lead in the sought-after adjuvant setting — but competitors are on the way.

The FDA on Friday approved Tecentriq as an adjuvant therapy for patients with Stage II-IIIA non small cell lung cancer with PD-(L)1 scores greater than or equal to 1, making it the first drug of its kind approved in an early setting that covers around 40% of all NSCLC patients.

The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) on Friday voted 19-0 in favor of authorizing a second shot of J&J’s Covid-19 vaccine to follow at least two months after the initial dose.

Regulators don’t have to follow VRBPAC’s recommendation, but they almost always do. Considering that the CDC’s advisory committee has already been set to review the expanded EUA, VRBPAC’s recommendation is likely to be adopted.