News

MorphoSys AG has announced plans to acquire Constellation Pharmaceuticals Inc, one of the first US companies to develop drugs in the field of epigenetics. Germany-based MorphoSys will pay $1.7 billion for the company, which has two clinical-stage cancer programmes and several projects in preclinical development.

Sanofi SA has stopped a clinical programme in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease after its small molecule drug venglustat failed to show a meaningful reduction in the total kidney volume growth rate. The programme was halted during the first stage of a pivotal Phase 2/3 study. Venglustat was targeting glycosphingolipids (GSL), which modulate membrane-to-protein functions and contribute to cell-to-cell communication.

Novartis has stopped a Phase 3 study of its eye treatment Beovu (brolucizumab) early following incidents of intraocular inflammation including retinal vasculitis and retinal vascular occlusion. Called MERLIN, the study was evaluating Beovu in a new four-week dosing regimen for patients with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The drug has already been approved in the US and elsewhere, but at a longer dosing interval.

The Japan Patent Office (JPO) has upheld a patent awarded to Dr Emmanuelle Charpentier and colleagues while giving intellectual property protection for a third discovery. As a result, the inventors have three Japanese patents for their discovery of the Crispr/Cas9 genome editing technology. The legal victories were announced on 1 June by ERS Genomics Ltd which licenses access to the technology.

Bacthera AG, a joint-venture contract manufacturer, has received authorisations from regulatory authorities in Switzerland and Denmark to begin supplying active ingredients to developers of live biotherapeutic products, a new therapeutic modality. The supply will be used for clinical trials of candidate therapies, and eventually for their commercialisation.

A new drug to treat lung cancer caused by a specific genetic mutation has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Lumakras (sotorasib) has been authorised for patients with non-small cell lung cancer whose tumours have a KRAS G12C mutation and who have received at least one prior systemic therapy. This is the first approved targeted therapy for tumours with any KRAS mutation. KRAS G12C mutations represent about 13% of all mutations in non-small cell lung cancers.

The Canadian real estate investor Oxford Properties Group has acquired a life science park in Cambridge, UK for £45 million as part of a strategy to service the global life science sector. The park, 310 Cambridge Science Park, is currently let to AstraZeneca Plc until November 2023, after which the company will move to new headquarters in the area.

Abivax SA has reported efficacy in a Phase 2b trial of a small molecule treatment for ulcerative colitis, paving the way for the start of a Phase 3 programme by the end of the year. Patients in the placebo-controlled trial had moderate to severe colitis and included individuals refractory to conventional drugs including biologics and/or JAK inhibitors. Significantly, the lowest dose of 25 mg was effective across the entire study population, the company announced on 24 May.

Pieris Pharmaceuticals Inc has entered into a new collaboration involving its proprietary protein technology in order to develop therapies for respiratory and retinal diseases. The agreement with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, is the company’s fifth partnership since its founding in 2000, and the first in ophthalmology.

The European Medicines Agency has given a positive opinion to a new gene therapy for cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy (CALD), a rare inherited neurological disease that affects approximately one in 21,000 newborn males. The scientific endorsement, which is the first step towards a formal marketing authorisation, is based on data from a single-arm trial.