Seat­tle Ge­net­ics has se­cured a speedy re­view of its sec­ond armed an­ti­body, cour­tesy of the FDA.

The com­pa­ny’s ‘break­through’ Astel­las-part­nered drug — en­for­tum­ab ve­dotin — has pro­cured pri­or­i­ty re­view from the US reg­u­la­tor, af­ter da­ta showed it helped pa­tients with a stub­born type of blad­der can­cer.

The drug-in­duced a 44% ob­jec­tive re­sponse rate (ORR) in 128 pa­tients whose dis­ease had pro­gressed de­spite treat­ment with both plat­inum-con­tain­ing chemother­a­py and a check­point in­hibitor in the one-arm EV-201 study. About 12% of the pa­tients ex­pe­ri­enced a com­plete re­sponse, Seat­tle Ge­net­ics dis­closed at AS­CO this June.

A mar­ket­ing ap­pli­ca­tion for the drug has al­ready been sub­mit­ted — and a late-stage tri­al de­signed to con­firm the drug’s safe­ty and ef­fi­ca­cy in this pa­tient pop­u­la­tion is on­go­ing.

The FDA is ex­pect­ed to make its de­ci­sion on the drug by March 15, the com­pa­ny said on Mon­day. In a note pub­lished in Ju­ly, Stifel an­a­lysts es­ti­mat­ed that en­for­tum­ab ve­dotin will gen­er­ate North Amer­i­ca sales of about $367 mil­lion in 2024.

Clay Sie­gall Seat­tle Ge­net­ics

The part­ners are test­ing the drug in com­bi­na­tion with Mer­ck’s $MRK Keytru­da and with chemother­a­py, and as part of a triplet com­bo. The idea is to al­so push for ap­proval in the front­line set­ting and gen­er­ate block­buster sales, Seat­tle Ge­net­ics’ chief Clay Sie­gall told End­points News at AS­CO.

AD­Cs are a class of ther­a­peu­tics in which a can­cer-killing tox­in is at­tached to a spe­cif­ic an­ti­body us­ing a biodegrad­able link­er. De­signed to min­i­mize the ef­fects of the chemother­a­py on healthy cells while max­i­miz­ing tu­mor cell death, the tech­nol­o­gy is some­times likened to a tro­jan horse as it is en­gi­neered to go un­no­ticed, de­liv­er­ing chemother­a­pies to cells ex­press­ing the anti­gen tar­get. Seat­tle Ge­net­ics $SGEN al­ready has one ADC on the mar­ket, Ad­cetris, and a slate of oth­ers in de­vel­op­ment.

En­for­tum­ab ve­dotin (EV) tar­gets Nectin-4, a cell ad­he­sion mol­e­cule seen in a range of sol­id tu­mors.

Urothe­lial can­cer is the most com­mon type of blad­der can­cer. About 80,470 new cas­es of blad­der can­cer are ex­pect­ed to be di­ag­nosed this year, and it is an­tic­i­pat­ed that 17,670 blad­der can­cer deaths will oc­cur in 2019, ac­cord­ing to Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety es­ti­mates. Da­ta sug­gest most pa­tients do not re­spond to check­point in­hibitors af­ter a plat­inum-con­tain­ing ther­a­py has failed as an ini­tial treat­ment for ad­vanced dis­ease, and there are no oth­er ap­proved op­tions for pa­tients once these two lines of treat­ment have been ex­haust­ed.

So­cial im­age: Clay Sie­gall, Life Sci­ence Wash­ing­ton via YouTube

Several countries had restarted their portions of AstraZeneca’s global Phase III Covid-19 vaccine trial after the study was paused worldwide in early September, but the US notably stayed on the sidelines — until now. Friday afternoon the pharma giant announced the all clear from US regulators. And on top of that, J&J announced Friday evening that it’s preparing to resume its own Phase III vaccine trial.

After flying high on Wall Street for the last few months of a pandemic, BiondVax’s stock and dreams of getting approval for its universal flu vaccine hit the windshield.

The Jerusalem-based biotech announced on Friday that its only clinical candidate, M-001, failed both primary and secondary endpoints in a Phase III study. There was no statistically significant difference in reduction of flu illness and severity between the vaccine and placebo groups, according to the company. The vaccine did prove safe, if ineffective, BiondVax said.

Since before Ilan Ganot started Solid Bio to develop a gene therapy for kids like his son, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Ultragenyx CEO Emil Kakkis has been watching and advising the former investment banker as he navigated the deep waters of drug development.

Just as Solid is getting back up on its feet after a yearlong clinical hold, Kakkis has decided to jump in for a formal alliance.

With a $40 million upfront, Ultragenyx is grabbing 14.45% of Solid’s shares $SLDB and the rights to its microdystrophin construct for use in combination with AAV8 vectors. Solid’s lead program, which utilizes AAV9, remains unaffected. The company also retains rights to other applications of its transgene.

Adam Koppel and Jeffrey Schwartz have jumped into the blank check game, raising $125 million for a stock listing in search of a company.

Their SPAC, BCLS Acquisition Corp, raised $125 million this week, with a line on $25 million more as it scouts for a biotech in search of money and a place on Wall Street.

The two principals at Bain Life Sciences have been on a romp since they set up the Bain operation 4 years ago. Their S-1 spells out a track record of 22 deals totaling $650 million for the life sciences group, which led to 9 IPOs.