So­bi signs $450M deal for rare dis­ease drug ema­palum­ab, boost­ing its in­flam­ma­tion, I/O pipeline

Swedish drug­mak­er So­bi has bought glob­al rights to a late-stage rare dis­ease drug from No­vaim­mune SA, build­ing up its in­flam­ma­tion busi­ness and po­ten­tial­ly lin­ing up a good chunk of new rev­enue should the drug get ap­proved.

So­bi paid $50 mil­lion up­front for the li­cens­ing pact, with an ad­di­tion­al $400 mil­lion over the next 8 years. In re­turn, it’s get­ting a glob­al li­cense for No­vaim­mune’s or­phan drug can­di­date ema­palum­ab, which treats a se­vere rare dis­ease called (stay with me) Haemophago­cyt­ic lym­pho­his­ti­o­cy­to­sis. HLH for short. This is a hema­to­log­ic dis­or­der more of­ten seen in chil­dren than adults. Pa­tients with HLH have over­ac­tive im­mune sys­tems, with a pro­lif­er­a­tion of lym­pho­cytes and macrophages that cause in­flam­ma­tion. In­stead of de­stroy­ing dam­aged cells in the body, the im­mune sys­tem goes af­ter the pa­tient’s own tis­sues and or­gans. HLH is clas­si­fied as one of the cy­tokine storm syn­dromes.

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