Sanofi SA continued to enjoy strong sales from vaccines and its Genzyme specialty pharma division in the second quarter, which more than offset declining revenue from its cardiovascular and diabetes businesses.
Evotec AG is to acquire another drug service company – its second takeover in less than a year – with the agreed purchase of Aptuit LLC for $300 million. Aptuit provides drug discovery and development services to companies in the US, Europe and India.
The Roche group is forecasting that sales this year will grow by a mid-single digit percentage following a better than expected performance of three recently launched pharmaceuticals and continued growth of its diagnostics business.
In announcing its second quarter results on 27 July, AstraZeneca Plc disclosed that the combination of Imfinzi and tremelimumab did not meet the endpoint of improving progression-free survival. The trial will continue until data is also available on overall survival.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s new chief executive plans to slim down the company’s pipeline, reduce costs and focus on respiratory medicines and treatments for HIV and infectious disease as part of a sweeping review of the company’s priorities.
UK-based Nightstar Ltd has recruited David Lubner to its board of directors less than a month after raising $45 million in a Series C financing round to advance its lead gene therapy product for choroideremia, an inherited cause of progressive blindness.
A gene therapy developed by Spark Therapeutics Inc for an inherited retinal disease has received a paediatric designation from the US Food and Drug Administration. The decision is the agency’s way of highlighting the treatment’s potential for children and young adults.
Ablynx NV has secured a collaboration with Sanofi SA to develop products directed at immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. The deal, which includes an upfront payment of €23 million, is the latest endorsement of the Belgian company’s therapeutic protein platform.
Novartis expects that the decline in sales and operating profit that the company experienced in 2016 will be mostly halted in 2017. This year, it expects sales will be largely unchanged and the operating profit will be flat or slightly lower. Growth is expected to resume next year. This follows a productivity drive and the successful launch of new products.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Nerlynx (neratinib), a new drug for lowering the risk of recurrent breast cancer in patients who have been treated with a regimen that includes trastuzumab, the targeted therapy for HER2-positive breast cancer.