News

Sanofi SA completed three acquisitions in the second quarter, signalling a new direction for research and development and potentially lifting the company’s dependence on sales of the immunology drug Dupixent. Acquisitions of Kiadis Pharma, a cell therapy company; Kymab Group, an antibody developer; and Tidal Therapeutics, a company with messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, were completed in April.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc pulled ahead in the second quarter recording a rise in turnover of 6% to £8.1 billion. This followed a double-digit decline in the first three months of the year. Operating profit for the latest quarter was £1.7 billion, down by 41% from the previous year, when the company recorded one-off income from several asset disposals.

AstraZeneca Plc reported double-digit revenue growth for the second quarter and first half year driven by several oncology medicines and by Farxiga, a diabetes drug recently approved in the US for chronic kidney disease. On 21 July, the company also completed the acquisition of Alexion Pharmaceuticals for $39 billion – a deal that will give it a rare disease portfolio and strengthen group revenue going forward. Alexion’s technology is based on complement biology.

MorphoSys AG ended the first half year poised to take over development of a new group of cancer drugs and potentially expand the indications for its first marketed product Monjuvi. The change comes as the company completes the acquisition of Constellation Pharmaceuticals Inc and advances trials for new uses of Monjuvi, its wholly-owned drug for refractory diffuse large B cell lymphoma. “We are writing the next chapter in our company’s history,” the MorphoSys chief executive Jean-Paul Kress, told investors during a briefing on 29 July.

AC Immune SA is to acquire a candidate vaccine and other assets to treat Parkinson’s disease in a strategic move to broaden its portfolio of drugs for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. The Switzerland-based company already has a portfolio of candidate drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. The acquisition – from Affiris AG of Austria – will give it a vaccine for Parkinson’s disease which has been validated in a Phase 1 clinical trial.

Artios Pharma Ltd, which is building a portfolio of small molecule drugs designed to kill cancer cells by blocking their ability to repair damaged DNA, has raised $153 million in a Series C financing round. The company is preparing to take a compound targeting DNA polymerase theta (Pol theta) into clinical development before the end of the year. Pol theta is an enzyme that plays a role in the proliferation of certain cancer cells but which is not necessary for normal cell growth.

Sales of diagnostics, including new tools for identifying Covid-19, showed a double-digit increase at Roche in the first half year. By comparison, the turnover for pharmaceuticals fell, led by declines for the Avastin and Herceptin cancer medicines which are facing competition from less expensive biosimilars. Altogether, group sales were CHF 30.7 billion for the first six months, up by 5% from a year earlier. Pharmaceuticals generated CHF 21.7 billion, down by 7%, while diagnostics had sales of CHF 9 billion, up by 49%.

Novartis reported a 14% increase in group sales in the second quarter on the strength of its innovative medicines division and a rebound at the Sandoz generics unit. Sandoz had experienced weak retail demand and price competition at the start of the year, but the business was starting to stabilise as the second quarter drew to a close, the company said in its half-year review on 21 July.

GHO Capital Partners LLP, a specialist healthcare investor located in London, UK, has closed its third fund, raising more than €2 billion in capital for investment. The company invests broadly, providing money to enterprises in the medical device and technology sectors, biopharmaceutical enterprises, and companies delivering services to patients.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc plans to build a new life science cluster in the UK in order to bring more resources to bear on the development of new medicines. The cluster will be located at a site in Stevenage already owned by the company. GSK plans to sell 33 acres of the plot in order to unlock £400 million in new investment from a private sector developer and build a new campus. The cluster is expected to create up to 5,000 new jobs over the next five to 10 years.