Take­da snaps up the Japan­ese rights to an old Shire cast-off; Boehringer In­gel­heim ac­quires Abexxa Bi­o­log­ics

A week be­fore the FDA is set to de­cide on Mirum Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals’ lead liv­er dis­ease drug — an old Shire cast-off called mar­al­ix­i­bat — Take­da is swoop­ing in to se­cure the rights in Japan.

Mar­al­ix­i­bat’s roots trace back to Lu­me­na, which was snapped up by Shire for $260 mil­lion-plus back in 2014. While the can­di­date had failed mid-stage stud­ies at Shire, Mirum be­lieves bet­ter tri­al de­sign and pa­tient se­lec­tion will de­liv­er the wins it needs. The drug is cur­rent­ly in de­vel­op­ment for Alag­ille syn­drome (a con­di­tion called AL­GS in which bile builds up in the liv­er), pro­gres­sive fa­mil­ial in­tra­hep­at­ic cholesta­sis (PF­IC, which caus­es pro­gres­sive liv­er dis­ease) and bil­iary atre­sia (a block­age in the ducts that car­ry bile from the liv­er to the gall­blad­der).

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