Celgene Corp has agreed to pay the privately-held Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc of Cambridge, Massachusetts $130 million upfront, including an equity investment, for access to Agios’s cancer metabolism research platform.
The European Medicines Agency said that Novartis Europharm Ltd has withdrawn its marketing authorisation application for a drug to treat chronic hepatitis C virus infection. The product is Joulferon (albinterferon alpha-2b).
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a new treatment option for Tarceva (erlotinib) for patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. This follows a positive opinion for the same indication from the EMA.
BioAlliance Pharma SA said that it has won approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to market its anti-fungal therapy, Loramyc, to treat patients whose immune systems have been compromised following chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
Oxford BioMedica Plc has set new targets for its portfolio of gene therapies and hopes to have a partnership in place for at least one- a product for Parkinson’s disease - by the end of 2010. The company is funded up to the beginning of 2012.
Roche posted group sales of CHF 12.2 billion (€8.5 billion) in the first quarter, up by 9% in local currencies. Pharmaceuticals sales rose by 10% and diagnostics, by 9%. It plans to file a US marketing application for a new breast cancer drug in 2010.
The Roche group has announced plans to acquire Medingo Ltd, a company which is developing a semi-disposable insulin patch pump for diabetics. Roche will pay $160 million upfront as well as up to 25% of this amount in performance milestones.
Sanofi Pasteur has entered into a strategic partnership with the US Naval Medical Research Center to develop a bacterial vaccine against enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, a cause of infectious gastroenteritis in travellers.
Life Technologies Corp of California has acquired 58% of the gene synthesis company, Geneart AG, paving the way for a public tender of the remaining shares. Life Technologies will offer €13.75 per share for the rest of the German company.
The Swiss molecular diagnostics company, Biocartis SA, has raised €30 million in a Series B financing round which was supported by the new investors, Johnson & Johnson Development Corp and the Debiopharm Group.