Cel­gene-part­nered biotech In­hi­brx has had a busy 2019 so far. The La Jol­la, Cal­i­for­nia-based com­pa­ny kicked off an ear­ly-stage on­col­o­gy study, part­nered with blue­bird bio, signed a pact with Italy’s Chiesi Group and se­cured a $40 mil­lion ven­ture cap­i­tal in­jec­tion. On Mon­day, it laid the ground­work for a rough­ly $75 mil­lion IPO.

In­hi­brx is de­vel­op­ing a pletho­ra of bi­o­log­ics — it has three on­col­o­gy pro­grams in hu­man clin­i­cal tri­als, a rare dis­ease pro­gram, for which it ex­pects to ini­ti­ate a hu­man study in the third quar­ter of 2019, as well as two pre­clin­i­cal drugs.

Its lead ex­per­i­men­tal drug tar­gets death re­cep­tor 5, or DR5, and is de­signed to treat mul­ti­ple tu­mor types, in­clud­ing dif­fi­cult-to-treat gas­troin­testi­nal tu­mors and mesothe­lioma both as a monother­a­py and in com­bi­na­tion with chemother­a­py. It is cur­rent­ly be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed in an ear­ly stage tri­al in pa­tients with sol­id tu­mors in­clud­ing sar­co­mas, and the read­out of that study is ex­pect­ed in the sec­ond half of this year.

Glob­al rights to In­hi­brx’s drug, IN­BRX-103, tar­get­ing CD47 — which pro­tects tu­mor cells from be­ing en­gulfed by macrophages — have been li­censed to Cel­gene $CELG. Mean­while, it has en­tered in­to an op­tion agree­ment with Chiesi for de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion rights out­side of North Amer­i­ca for IN­BRX-101 — which is be­ing de­vel­oped for the rare res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­ease Al­pha-1 an­tit­rypsin (AAT) de­fi­cien­cy.

Now, In­hi­brx is look­ing to list on the Nas­daq un­der the sym­bol “$IN­BX” and raise $74.75 mil­lion in the IPO. In a sep­a­rate pri­vate place­ment con­cur­rent with the of­fer­ing, Chiesi is buy­ing $10 mil­lion worth of In­hi­brx shares, ac­cord­ing to In­hi­brx’s fil­ing.

Last month, In­hi­brx raised $40 mil­lion from Viking Glob­al In­vestors — al­to­geth­er the com­pa­ny has so far raised $205 mil­lion since its in­cep­tion. Oth­er in­vestors in the biotech in­clude RA Cap­i­tal, Lil­ly Asia Ven­tures, Ar­row­Mark Part­ners, WuXi Bi­o­log­ics and Alexan­dria.

Im­age: Fer­gu­son Pape Bald­win Ar­chi­tects (FP­BA)

The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and Sanofi today said that their potential sleeping sickness treatment saw success rates of up to 95% from a Phase II/III study investigating the safety and efficacy of single-dose acoziborole.

The potentially transformative treatment for sleeping sickness would mainly be targeted at African countries, according to data published today in The Lancet Infectious Diseases medical journal. The clinical trial was led by DNDi and its partners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Guinea, with the authors noting:

Lexicon Pharmaceutical is not giving up on its Type I diabetes candidate, despite FDA’s repeated rejections. This week the company laid out is argument again for a hearing on sotagliflozin in response to the FDA’s most recent denial.

The issue goes back to March 2019 when the FDA made very clear to Lexicon and its now departed partner Sanofi that it would not approve their application for a potential Type I diabetes drug because it does not appear to be safe.

A manufacturing site that has received interest and investments from large pharma companies and the UK government is opening its doors in Scotland.

The manufacturer CPI (Centre for Process Innovation) has opened a new £88 million ($105 million) “Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Center” in Glasgow, Scotland, to accelerate the development of manufacturing tech and solve longstanding challenges in medicine development and manufacturing.

Johnson & Johnson unit Janssen on Wednesday sued Amgen over the company’s proposed biosimilar to its megablockbuster Stelara (ustekinumab), after Amgen said it was ready to launch next May or as soon as the FDA signs off on it.

If Amgen carries through with that plan, Janssen told the Delaware district court that the Thousand Oaks, CA-based company will infringe on at least two Janssen patents.