Sesen Bio said that it was not ex­pect­ing a CRL from the FDA for its blad­der can­cer can­di­date Vicineum. But the re­ject­ed fil­ing in­clud­ed thou­sands of vi­o­la­tions and in­ves­ti­ga­tor mis­con­duct, STAT News re­port­ed Wednes­day.

Thomas Can­nell

The 130-pa­tient study had more than 2,000 vi­o­la­tions, 215 of which were clas­si­fied as ma­jor, STAT said. In­de­pen­dent mon­i­tors al­so re­port­ed three in­ves­ti­ga­tors to the FDA for a “se­ri­ous non­com­pli­ance” that “placed sub­jects at risk of harm.” A pa­tient died in 2016 of liv­er fail­ure re­lat­ed to the drug, and two years lat­er, the com­pa­ny said that there were no drug-re­lat­ed deaths at a urol­o­gy con­fer­ence.

The com­pa­ny saw its stock crash, as it en­tered a halt at $6 per share last Fri­day and emerged bat­tered with a $0.86 price.

In June CEO Thomas Can­nell said that the drug was on its way to gen­er­at­ing be­tween $1 bil­lion and $3 bil­lion. Then Mon­day, he blamed “tox­ic” and crit­i­cal me­dia cov­er­age of the FDA’s ap­proval of Bio­gen’s Alzheimer’s treat­ment Aduhelm for the CRL. — Josh Sul­li­van

Bris­tol My­ers picks up de­vel­op­ment of AI out­fit’s im­munol­o­gy drug

Ru­pert Vessey

Bris­tol My­ers Squibb has opt­ed to pick up the de­vel­op­ment of an im­mune-mod­u­lat­ing drug as part of a re­search col­lab­o­ra­tion with UK-based AI dis­cov­ery out­fit Ex­sci­en­tia, the part­ners said Wednes­day.

Ex­sci­en­tia will re­ceive a $20 mil­lion mile­stone pay­ment as part of the pick up with ad­di­tion­al mile­stones and tiered roy­al­ties pos­si­ble. De­tails on the drug were scarce, but the part­ners said it tar­gets “a crit­i­cal im­muno­log­i­cal ki­nase.”

“We are pleased to in-li­cense our first drug can­di­date re­sult­ing from our strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ex­sci­en­tia,” Ru­pert Vessey, Bris­tol My­ers’ pres­i­dent of ear­ly R&D said in a re­lease. “Ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and ma­chine learn­ing con­tin­ue to play im­por­tant roles in drug dis­cov­ery and Ex­sci­en­tia has de­liv­ered a promis­ing de­vel­op­ment can­di­date in the field of im­munol­o­gy. We look for­ward to our con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion and fur­ther ad­vanc­ing this can­di­date for the po­ten­tial ben­e­fit of pa­tients with un­met med­ical need.” — Kyle Blanken­ship

Were­wolf hops aboard the Keytru­da train with Mer­ck tri­al col­lab­o­ra­tion

Were­wolf Ther­a­peu­tics and Mer­ck are team­ing up for a new clin­i­cal tri­al.

Ran­di Isaacs

Look­ing at Were­wolf’s WTX-124 can­di­date tar­get­ing IL-2, the pair will col­lab­o­rate on a Phase I study eval­u­at­ing the pro­gram’s safe­ty and ef­fi­ca­cy in sol­id tu­mors, the com­pa­nies an­nounced Wednes­day. Re­searchers will ex­am­ine WTX-124 both as a monother­a­py and in com­bi­na­tion with Mer­ck’s Keytru­da.

“The clin­i­cal ben­e­fit of tar­get­ing IL-2 as a treat­ment for can­cer has long been es­tab­lished; how­ev­er, its util­i­ty has been lim­it­ed by chal­leng­ing tox­i­c­i­ties,” Were­wolf CMO Ran­di Isaacs said in a state­ment. “We be­lieve WTX-124 has the po­ten­tial to en­hance ther­a­peu­tic op­tions for can­cer pa­tients as a monother­a­py and when com­bined with check­point in­hibitors like Keytru­da.”

Were­wolf says it plans to sub­mit an IND for the WTX-124 pro­gram in the first half of 2022. Should the IND be cleared, the Phase I study will start “prompt­ly,” though no time­line was spec­i­fied. — Max Gel­man

Pen­ny stock sees shares jump at Phase II topline da­ta

Pen­ny stock play­er Azur­Rx got a sig­nif­i­cant bump Wednes­day af­ter it re­port­ed topline da­ta for a Phase II study.

James Sapirstein

Eval­u­at­ing the com­pa­ny’s MS1819 pro­gram for the treat­ment of se­vere ex­ocrine pan­cre­at­ic in­suf­fi­cien­cy in pa­tients with cys­tic fi­bro­sis, Azur­Rx said the can­di­date in com­bi­na­tion with stan­dard of care re­sult­ed in an av­er­age 6.57-per­cent­age point gain from base­line in the Co­ef­fi­cient of Fat Ab­sorp­tion, which the com­pa­ny says is a clin­i­cal­ly mean­ing­ful re­sult.

Pre­vi­ous lit­er­a­ture had said any­thing above a five-per­cent­age point im­prove­ment is clin­i­cal­ly mean­ing­ful. Da­ta from Wednes­day’s re­sults come from 20 pa­tients.

“Topline da­ta clear­ly show that com­bin­ing MS1819 to the dai­ly dose of PERT [stan­dard of care] had clin­i­cal ben­e­fits for all pa­tients and im­proved qual­i­ty of life,” CEO James Sapirstein said in a state­ment. “Our next step with the MS1819 pro­gram is to fi­nal­ize de­vel­op­ment of a new en­teric-coat­ed mi­crobead for­mu­la­tion, which we be­lieve will en­able more of the med­ica­tion to reach the small in­tes­tine there­by en­hanc­ing its ther­a­peu­tic po­ten­tial.”

Azur­Rx shares $AZRX sky­rock­et­ed 46% in pre-mar­ket trad­ing Wednes­day, set­tling in the 35% to 40% range af­ter the open­ing bell.

The for­mu­la­tion work for the new en­teric-coat­ed mi­crobead tech is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by the end of the year. Azur­Rx plans to launch a bridg­ing study in 2022 eval­u­at­ing the for­mu­la­tion as a monother­a­py. — Max Gel­man

So­ma­Log­ic does the Twist

Emi­ly Lep­roust

So­ma­Log­ic and Twist Bio­science have agreed to a new col­lab­o­ra­tion, an­nounced Wednes­day morn­ing. The deal will al­low Twist ac­cess to So­ma­Log­ic’s plat­form to dis­cov­er new an­ti­bod­ies and drug tar­gets.

No fi­nan­cial terms were dis­closed for the deal.

“We in­tend to use the an­ti­bod­ies dis­cov­ered for our in­ter­nal pipeline, mov­ing the most promis­ing can­di­dates through pre­clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and then po­ten­tial­ly out­li­cens­ing to a part­ner,” Twist CEO Emi­ly Lep­roust said in a state­ment. — Max Gel­man

Biotech de­vel­op­ing an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry COPD treat­ment lands €20M Se­ries A

An Ice­landic biotech that fo­cus­es on treat­ing chron­ic ob­struc­tive pul­monary dis­ease has se­cured a Eu­ro­pean Se­ries A fi­nanc­ing round, the com­pa­ny an­nounced Wednes­day.

Maria Bech

Epi­En­do raised €20 mil­lion, or $23.4 mil­lion. The round was led by Flerie In­vest and Iðunn Ven­ture Fund. Ex­ist­ing in­vestor ABC Ven­tures par­tic­i­pat­ed, as well as the Eu­ro­pean In­no­va­tion Coun­cil Fund.

Funds will go to­ward mov­ing EP395 through clin­i­cal tri­als through Phase IIa. The drug en­tered Phase I tri­als in April.

“This fi­nanc­ing is a ma­jor step for Epi­En­do, not on­ly fund­ing our lead com­pound through clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment in pa­tients with COPD, but al­so en­abling ex­plo­ration of oth­er im­por­tant po­ten­tial ther­a­peu­tic ap­pli­ca­tion ar­eas such as der­ma­tol­ogy and gas­troin­testi­nal dis­or­ders, where com­pro­mised ep­ithe­lial in­tegri­ty is known to con­tribute to dis­ease patho­phys­i­ol­o­gy,” CEO Maria Bech said in a press re­lease.

Sci­en­tists seek to make EP395 the first dis­ease mod­i­fy­ing non-an­tibi­ot­ic macrolide that can be used as a long-term treat­ment for COPD. It works by re­duc­ing in­flam­ma­tion in the ep­ithe­lial bar­ri­er, and in the fu­ture, the com­pa­ny will try the can­di­date on pa­tients with asth­ma, bronchiec­ta­sis and dif­fuse pan-bron­chi­oli­tis. — Josh Sul­li­van

Ireland has been on a roll in 2022, with several large pharma companies announcing multimillion-euro projects. Now AstraZeneca’s rare disease outfit Alexion is looking to get in on the action.

Alexion on Friday announced a €65 million ($68.8 million) investment in new and enhanced capabilities across two sites in the country, including at College Park in the Dublin suburb of Blanchardstown and the Monksland Industrial Park in the central Irish town of Athlone, according to the Industrial Development Agency of Ireland.

Another biotech standing on shaky financial legs has fallen victim to the bears.

Merck partner 4D Pharma has reported that a key lender, Oxford Finance, shoved the UK company into administration after calling in a $14 million loan they couldn’t immediately make good on. Trading in their stock was halted with a market cap that had fallen to a mere £30 million.

“Despite the very difficult prevailing market conditions,” 4D reported on Friday, the biotech had been making progress on finding some new financing and turned to Oxford with an alternative late on Thursday and then again Friday morning.

Amidst recently broader vaccine manufacturing initiatives from the EU and European companies, the G7 summit in the mountains of Bavaria has brought about some positive news for closing vaccine and medical product manufacturing gaps around the globe.

According to a statement from the White House, the G7 leaders have formally launched the partnership for global infrastructure, PGII. The effort will aim to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars to deliver infrastructure projects in several sectors including the medical and pharmaceutical manufacturing space.

Some Celgene shareholders aren’t happy with how Bristol Myers Squibb’s takeover went down.

On Friday, a New York federal judge ruled that they have a case against the pharma giant, denying a request to dismiss allegations that it purposely slow-rolled Breyanzi’s approval to avoid paying out $6.4 billion in contingent value rights (CVR).

When Bristol Myers put down $74 billion to scoop up Celgene back in 2019, liso-cel — the CAR-T lymphoma treatment now marketed as Breyanzi — was supposedly one of the centerpieces of the deal. After going back and forth on negotiations for about six months, BMS put $6.4 billion into a CVR agreement that required an FDA approval for Zeposia, Breyanzi and Abecma, each by an established date.

Not even two months after reporting a Phase II fail for its lead drug candidate, Stealth BioTherapeutics is now being eyed for a potential acquisition, with one firm wanting to take it private.

Stealth reported Monday that Morningside Venture Investments sent Stealth’s board of directors a non-binding preliminary proposal to acquire all outstanding shares not yet owned by Morningside for 2.6 cents per share and 31.3 cents per ADS.