Company News

The checkpoint antibody Tecentriq (atezolizumab) received its fifth approval from the US Food and Drug Administration on 8 March – this time for triple-negative breast cancer. The approval is for the use of Tecentriq in combination with chemotherapy for patients with breast cancer whose tumours express the PD-L1 protein. Patients will be identified using a new FDA-approved assay.

A young Danish company, SNIPR BIOME, that is using CRISPR/Cas technology to fight bacteria has raised $50 million in a Series A financing round co-led by Life Sciences Partners (LSP) and existing investor Lundbeckfonden Emerge. The North-East Family Office of Copenhagen, Denmark and Wellington Partners of Munich, Germany also participated in the round.

Genmab A/S ended 2018 with a cash balance of DKK 6.1 billion ($920 million), up by 13% from a year earlier as royalty revenue from its lead cancer product Darzalex (daratumumab), developed with Janssen Biotech Inc, continued to roll in. Darzalex is a monoclonal antibody that binds to the protein CD38 on multiple myeloma cells for the treatment of multiple myeloma. It is now approved for six indications in the US including, most recently, as a split dose regimen.

With sales of its lead product booming – up by 51% in 2018 – the Pharming Group NV produced its first annual net profit since its founding in 1988.

Revenue from product sales rose to €134.3 million in 2018 from a restated €88.7 million in 2017 while net profit came to €24.9 million compared with a loss of €76.2 million in 2017.

MolMed SpA and Genenta Science SRL, both of Italy, have renewed and extended an oncology collaboration with a view to starting trials of a candidate drug that could treat both haematologic malignancies and solid tumours. Genenta has developed an ex-vivo immune-gene transfer technology to enable the targeting of immunomodulatory molecules to tumour-infiltrating monocytes and macrophages. The goal is to deliver an immunomodulatory molecule into the tumour microenvironment triggering an immune response against multiple tumour antigens.

Biogen Inc is to acquire Nightstar Therapeutics Plc, a gene therapy company spun out from the University of Oxford and financed by Syncona, which has a product in Phase 3 for the treatment of choroideremia, a rare retinal disorder. The US biotech company will pay $25.50 in cash for each share of Nightstar, valuing the company at approximately $800 million.

Sangamo Therapeutics Inc is readying a second generation of its zinc finger nuclease technology to use in an in vivo genome editing trial later this year. This is expected to provide further support for the company’s strategy of using engineered nucleases to correct DNA in patients with Hunter syndrome and other genetic diseases. Hunter syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that can lead to tissue and organ damage.

Calypso Biotech BV has completed a €20 million Series A round to advance a preclinical antibody for autoimmune indications into human studies. The financing round was announced on 20 February by INKEF Capital, which co-led the round together with Gilde Healthcare.

Belgium-based UCB SA has upgraded its medium-term sales forecast for core neurology and immunology products after a year of improved profitability and sales growth. During 2018 the company’s epilepsy product Vimpat (lacosamide) achieved sales of €1.1 billion with double-digit growth in the US, Europe and elsewhere.

The German Cancer Award 2019 has been given to Ugur Sahin, the co-founder and chief executive of BioNTech AG for his work on individualised cancer immunotherapies and in particular, the development and clinical testing of messenger RNA (mRNA)-based cancer vaccines tailored to an individual patient’s cancer mutation profile.