Troubled Voyager’s gene therapy relaunch gets a boost with $630M Pfizer deal

Michael Higgins, Voyager interim CEO

October 6, 2021 07:00 AM EDTUpdated 08:50 AM

Troubled Voyager’s gene therapy relaunch gets a boost with $630M Pfizer deal

Jason Mast

Editor

It was spring, the pandemic seemed in retreat, patrons were filling Boston’s bars again and, in Cambridge, Voyager Therapeutics was in trouble.

The Third Rock-founded biotech emerged in 2014 as one of the first of the flashy new gene therapy companies, promising one-time treatments for common devastating conditions like Alzheimer’s. It was one of the first to deliver results, too: By 2017, its Parkinson’s treatment had improved motor function in 10 patients.

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Biotech Halftime Report: After a bumpy year, is biotech ready to rebound?

Brian Abrahams

Co-Head of Biotechnology Research

The biotech sector has come down firmly from the highs of February as negative sentiment takes hold. The sector had a major boost of optimism from the success of the COVID-19 vaccines, making investors keenly aware of the potential of biopharma R&D engines. But from early this year, clinical trial, regulatory and access setbacks have reminded investors of the sector’s inherent risks.

RBC Capital Markets recently surveyed investors to take the temperature of the market, a mix of specialists/generalists and long-only/ long-short investment strategies. Heading into the second half of the year, investors mostly see the sector as undervalued (49%), a large change from the first half of the year when only 20% rated it as undervalued. Around 41% of investors now believe that biotech will underperform the S&P500 in the second half of 2021. Despite that view, 54% plan to maintain their position in the market and 41% still plan to increase their holdings.

October 16, 2021 06:00 AM EDT

Weekly

Covid-19 vaccine boosters earn big thumbs up, but Moderna draws ire over world supply; What's next for Merck’s Covid pill?; The C-suite view on biotech; and more

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

You may remember that at the beginning of this year, Endpoints News set a goal to go broader and deeper. We are still working towards that, and are excited to share that Beth Snyder Bulik will be joining us on Monday to cover all things pharma marketing. You can sign up for her weekly Endpoints MarketingRx newsletter in your reader profile.

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October 15, 2021 10:21 AM EDTUpdated 11:05 AM

R&D

Novartis development chief John Tsai: 'We go deep in the new platforms'

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

During our recent European Biopharma Summit, I talked with Novartis development chief John Tsai about his experiences over the 3-plus years he’s been at the pharma giant. You can read the transcript below or listen to the exchange in the link above.

John Carroll: I followed your career for quite some time. You’ve had more than 20 years in big pharma R&D and you’ve obviously seen quite a lot. I really was curious about what it was like for you three and a half years ago when you took over as R&D chief at Novartis. Obviously a big move, a lot of changes. You went to work for the former R&D chief of Novartis, Vas Narasimhan, who had his own track record there. So what was the biggest adjustment when you went into this position?

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Amit Etkin, Alto Neuroscience CEO (Alto via Vimeo)

October 14, 2021 11:07 AM EDTUpdated 11:32 AM

Startups

A star Stanford professor leaves his lab for a startup out to remake psychiatry

Jason Mast

Editor

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.

Susan Galbraith, Executive VP, Oncology R&D, AstraZeneca

October 14, 2021 10:55 AM EDTUpdated October 15, 03:10 PM

R&D

AstraZeneca oncology R&D chief Susan Galbraith: 'You're going to need orthogonal combinations'

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Earlier in the week we broadcast our 4th annual European Biopharma Summit with a great lineup of top execs. One of the one-on-one conversations I set up was with Susan Galbraith, the oncology research chief at AstraZeneca. In a wide-ranging discussion, Galbraith reviewed the cancer drug pipeline and key trends influencing development work at the pharma giant. You can watch the video, above, or stick with the script below. — JC

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October 15, 2021 04:03 PM EDT

Pharma

FDA+

Roche's Tecentriq crosses the finish line first in adjuvant lung cancer, potentially kicking off gold rush

Kyle Blankenship

Managing Editor

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.

Rahul Singhvi, Resilience CEO

October 15, 2021 10:23 AM EDTUpdated 04:54 PM

Deals

R&D

Manufacturing

A Bob Nelsen startup turns to Harvard to help sharpen its tech, inspiring first spinout

Josh Sullivan

Associate Editor

One of Bob Nelsen’s latest projects is headed to Harvard.

Resilience, a company started with the goal of establishing itself as a “one-stop-shop” for companies looking to scale manufacturing, including for hard-to-develop cell and gene therapies, is less than a year old. Friday, it announced a five-year R&D deal with Harvard University that includes $30 million to develop biologics, including vaccines, nucleic acids and cell and gene therapies.

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John Oyler, BeiGene CEO (Paul Yeung/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

October 14, 2021 07:30 AM EDT

Deals

China

Bristol Myers wants to pull out of its Abraxane deal in China. BeiGene says no way

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

A year and a half after Chinese officials ordered BeiGene to stop selling Bristol Myers Squibb’s Abraxane in the wake of an alarming inspection of a US facility, the manufacturing issues at the root of the import suspension still appear unresolved.

And Bristol Myers wants to axe the Abraxane supply deal altogether.

But BeiGene, which is currently in arbitration proceedings against its Big Pharma partner, won’t let it off the hook so easily.

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Madhu Natarajan, Takeda rare disease development head

October 13, 2021 08:00 AM EDTUpdated 10:01 AM

Deals

Cell/Gene Tx

Drawn to the idea of turning B cells into 'protein factories,' Takeda jumps into a milestone-heavy, $900M pact

Paul Schloesser

Editorial Intern

Madhu Natarajan can trace his fascination with the idea of taking B cells and turning them into protein factories back 20 years, when he had his own lab at UT Southwestern. So when Natarajan, now the rare disease development head for Takeda, sat down for a meet-up with execs from Seattle-based Immusoft at the last in-person JP Morgan conference, they went straight into a brainstorming session.

“That B cells can take up residence and do what they do for a long time,” says Natarajan, pumping out proteins and “leveraging it into a therapeutic context,” hits his sweet spot for discovery deals. And he was deeply impressed by what he heard.

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