News

Merck & Co Inc is to spend up to $3 billion to acquire a privately-held ophthalmology company and build a pipeline of candidate drugs for eye diseases. The company, Eyebiotech Ltd, was founded in August 2021 by two physicians and the venture capital group SV Health Investors. It has a lead drug poised to enter Phase 2b/3 for the treatment of patients with diabetic macular oedema. Merck will pay $1.3 billion upfront for the company, with future milestone payments amounting to up to $1.7 billion.

Johnson & Johnson Inc is to spend $1.25 billion to acquire the developer of a bi-specific antibody for atoptic dermatitis, a chronic and sometimes life-long skin disease. The antibody, NM26, was developed by a subsidiary of the Swiss biotech, Numab Therapeutics AG and is poised to enter Phase 2. Investors in the asset include the European venture capital companies Novo Holdings A/S and Forbion, which supported its development for autoimmune diseases. J&J will acquire the Numab unit Yellow Jersey Therapeutics.

Evotec SE has entered the obesity field under a new partnership with three French institutions where it will identify targets and diagnostic markers for the treatment of metabolic disorders, including over-weight and obesity. This is in response to the prevalence of obesity and the success of the first commercial medicines to treat it. Announced on 30 May, the partnership brings Evotec into an alliance with Inserm, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research; Lille University Hospital; and Inserm Transfert, a private subsidiary of Inserm.

Calliditas Therapeutics AB is set to be acquired by the Japanese conglomerate Asahi Kasei Corp in a transaction that values the Swedish developer of drugs for rare diseases at SEK 11.8 billion ($1.1 billion). The bid comes just six months after Calliditas received full US Food and Drug Administration for its lead product, Tarpeyo (budesonide), for primary immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN), a rare kidney disease.

Grey Wolf Therapeutics Ltd, a UK company with a subsidiary in Australia, has raised $50 million in a Series B round extension to support development of a candidate drug for solid tumours. The drug, GRWD5769, is a small molecule inhibitor of an enzyme in the endoplasmic reticulum that plays a key role in the presentation of antigen to the human immune system. Initial data from an ongoing Phase 1/2 trial will be presented at the annual meeting of ASCO which takes place from 31 March to 4 June.

The Roche Group has received a ‘breakthrough therapy designation’ from the US Food and Drug Administration for a new breast cancer treatment intended for patients with a PIK3CA mutation. The PIK3CA gene makes an enzyme which is involved in many important functions in a cell. Mutations can cause the enzyme to become overactive and cancer cells to grow. 

The World Health Organization has designated the European Medicines Regulatory Network, a group of institutions that include the European Medicines Agency, as a WHO Listed Authority. The list, which was launched in March 2022, essentially gives the WHO access to the expertise of qualified regulators across the globe to help it improve the availability of safe and effective vaccines and medicines to people across geographies. This includes conducting evidence-based medicine assessments in situations where this expertise might not otherwise be available.

A new bispecific antibody drug has been approved for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer, marking an advance in the treatment of a disease with high relapse rates and very few therapy options. The drug, Imdelltra (tarlatamab), was given an accelerated approval by the US Food and Drug Administration on 16 May following a Phase 2 trial in patients with small cell lung cancer who had failed two or more prior lines of treatment. The developer is Amgen Inc.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) saw a 33% increase in the success rate for their marketing authorisation applications in 2023, according to a new report by the European Medicines Agency. SMEs are broadly defined as companies with a staff headcount of between 10 and 250 people and a turnover ranging from less than €2 million to up to €50 million. Despite their small size, they represent the backbone of the European life science industry with activity in nine distinctive sectors. There were 1,925 registered SMEs on 31 December 2023. 

France-based SparingVision SA, which is developing gene therapies for retinal diseases, has presented data from an ongoing natural history study of rod-cone dystrophy showing the structural features of the disease and identifying a subset of patients with a higher rate of disease progression. This is to inform the company’s development of an ocular gene therapy for the disease which is in a separate Phase 1/2 trial in patients for severe rod-cone dystrophy.