News

Novartis is continuing to restructure its portfolio with the planned acquisition of a prescription medicine for dry eye disease from Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd. It is paying $3.4 billion upfront for the product, which has been approved in multiple markets including the US, Canada and Australia. Potential milestone payments are up to $1.9 billion.

Announced on 9 May, the transaction comes just one month after Novartis spun-off its Alcon eye care division whose portfolio consists of devices including surgical instruments for cataract and retinal surgery.

BioNTech SE has taken a further step in building its portfolio of antibody assets with the acquisition of an early clinical-stage antibody and preclinical assets from MabVax Therapeutics Holding Inc of San Diego, US. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

H. Lundbeck A/S expects revenue and profit to retreat this year after an exceptional performance in 2018 when strong sales and a rolling restructuring project delivered an operating margin of 29.3%. This year revenue is expected to be within a range of DKK 16.3-16.7 billion compared with DKK 18.1 billion (€2.4 billion) in 2018.

MorphoSys AG is further expanding its commercial operations in the US in anticipation of Food and Drug Administration approval of its first wholly-owned antibody therapeutic by the middle of 2020. The product, MOR208, is an Fc-engineered antibody directed against the cancer antigen CD19. It is being developed for diffuse large B cell lymphoma in patients with relapsed disease who are not eligible for high-dose chemotherapy or a stem cell transplant.

H. Lundbeck A/S is poised to expand its portfolio of medicines for neurological diseases with the acquisition of Abide Therapeutics Inc, a US company whose lead product is being developed for Tourette syndrome and neuropathic pain. The product, ABX-1431, inhibits the serine hydrolase monoacylglycerol lipase (MGLL), a key enzyme in the brain.

According to the US National Cancer Institute, the compound has potential for use in the  treatment of various central nervous system (CNS) diseases because of its analgesic and anti-neuroinflammatory activities.

Confo Therapeutics NV, which has a new approach to drug discovery, has raised €30 million in a Series A financing round – one of the largest A financing rounds in Belgium. The round was led by the Dutch early-stage investor BioGeneration Ventures and co-led by Wellington Partners with participation by eight other institutions including Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB), a co-founder of the company.

Roche has secured a new indication for its antibody-drug conjugate Kadcyla (trastuzumab emtansine) that extends the drug’s approved use to early breast cancer in patients who have had surgery but still show residual signs of disease. Treatment would take place after chemotherapy and antibody therapy. Kadcyla was first approved for late-stage breast cancer in 2013. In both cases, patients have tumours that overexpress the HER2 protein.

Promethera Biosciences SA has completed a Series D financing round to support the development of its cell therapies for liver disease, raising €39.7 million from global investors. A total of €10 million of the funding was committed by the Japanese conglomerate Itochu Corp in January.

A new Switzerland-based company, Alentis Therapeutics Ltd, has received CHF 12.5 million (€11.1 million) in Series A funding to develop an antibody drug for the potential treatment of liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The technology is based on research conducted by scientists at the University of Strasbourg and Inserm in France, as well as the Mount Sinai Hospital in the US.

PolyProx Therapeutics Ltd, a spin-out of the University of Cambridge, has secured £3.4 million in seed capital to finance the development of a new class of engineered proteins for treating cancer. The seed round was co-led by Cambridge Innovation Capital Plc, RT Capital Management and Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialisation arm of Cambridge University.