Company News

A new, small molecule drug from Bayer AG was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration on 9 November to reduce the risk of secondary stroke in patients who have already experienced a disorder. The drug, Sunharbo (asundexian) inhibits factor XIa – an enzyme that plays a key role in blood clotting. According to Bayer, Sunharbo is the first drug of its kind to be approved for patients. When given in combination with an antiplatelet therapy, it has been shown to reduce stroke risk in two specific instances.

Netherlands-based VectorY Therapeutics BV has raised €74.5 million to support development of new products for neurodegenerative diseases using a vector technology that enables the production of therapeutic antibodies in vivo. The financing includes new investors Angelini Ventures, Invest-NL of the Netherlands and the European Investment Bank. A group of returning investors including Forbion and Eli Lilly & Co also participated. 

A UK company with technology for potentially removing disease-associated proteins from the brain has raised $60 million in Series A financing from a syndicate led by 4BIO Capital and new investor Eli Lilly and Co. Oyster Therapeutics Ltd, formerly known as Kesmalea Therapeutics, has developed a new version of protein degradation, a natural process by which cells in the body breakdown proteins that are damaged or that are no longer needed in order to maintain equilibrium. As therapies, protein degraders are being used by multiple companies to clear defective proteins from cells.

A spin-out from the University of Oxford, UK, has raised £67 million from a Series A financing to advance clinical development of a new monoclonal antibody for treating essential thrombocythaemia (ET), a rare blood cancer. Alethio Therapeutics Ltd is building a portfolio of medicines to treat myeloproliferative neoplasms of which ET is one. 

Germany-based Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH has broadened a two-year oncology agreement with Sino Biopharmaceutical Ltd of Hong Kong, enabling the two parties to explore treatments based on antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and T cell engagers. The companies launched their first collaboration in 2024 when BI agreed to supply Sino, now known as the SBP Group, with a small group of experimental drugs for further development.

AstraZeneca Plc plans to generate up to $1.5 billion in savings over the next three years by redeploying existing assets to invest in newer technologies and in the pipeline. The plan was announced on 30 October alongside the company’s third quarter results which showed a revenue increase of 7% to $16.2 billion for the three-month period. Operating profit was $4.4 billion, up by 22%. The company expects revenue for the year to increase by a mid-to-high single-digit percentage.

On 23 October, US-based Bristol Myers Squibb Co disclosed that a patient with highly active relapsing multiple sclerosis died of septic pneumonia following the data cutoff in a Phase 1 trial. The study involved the treatment of patients with autoimmune neurological diseases with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy targeting CD19 on B cells. 

AM-Pharma BV of the Netherlands is being acquired by a specialist healthcare company in the UK in a deal that will see its enzyme replacement therapy for hypophosphatasia (HPP) advance to Phase 2. The buyer is Ambrose Healthcare Ltd which already has two rare disease programmes in its portfolio and is positioning itself for more. This comes at a time when the US Food and Drug Administration is updating its guidance for the developers of drugs for rare diseases. Current estimates put the number of these diseases at 7,000 to 10,000 globally.

Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group Co Ltd announced a second antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) deal with the Roche Group on 19 October, giving the Chinese company an upfront payment of $400 million. The two companies did not disclose the specific cancers that they will be investigating. They did however say that Hansoh will lead early development of the programmes up to the completion of global Phase 1a clinical trials. After this, Roche will be responsible for further development worldwide – excluding the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

The European Medicines Agency has taken steps to innovate its regulatory procedures with two pilot programmes that will, on the one hand, align with the US Food and Drug Administration’s plans to reduce animal studies in drug development and on the other, to conduct structured dialogues with companies on the requirements for marketing authorisation applications. In the first case, the goal is to modernise pre-clinical tests for new drugs. In the second, it is to create space for more interactions between the agency and companies prior to the submission of formal applications.