News

GlaxoSmithKline Plc has entered into a cancer collaboration with Merck KGaA of Germany which features a direct challenge to Keytruda’s (pembrolizumab) dominant position in lung cancer. Announced on 5 February, the partnership involves the co-development and commercialisation of the Merck asset M7824 (bintrafusp alfa) which is an investigational bifunctional fusion protein immunotherapy.

The Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) has launched a call for proposals from the scientific community to help it create a large chemogenomics library for drug discovery, access to which would be unrestricted.

Novo Nordisk A/S reported flat sales and a decline in operating profit in 2018 as the impact of lower insulin prices in the US continued to weigh on the company’s financial results. But the outcome was better than the company’s own forecast, largely due to the strong performance of the glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) products Victoza and Ozempic for Type 2 diabetes and the obesity product Saxenda.

The Roche Group ended 2018 with sales of CHF 56.9 billion ($57.16 billion), up by 7% from a year earlier, and US regulatory approvals for two new cancer medicines as well as a drug for treating acute uncomplicated influenza. The company had an operating profit of CHF 14.8 billion, up by 13.5% from a year earlier.

Novartis initiated a major change in strategy in 2018 under the leadership of Vas Narasimhan, who became chief executive a year ago. The company sold its consumer products business and took steps to divest the Alcon eye division. At the same time it invested heavily in gene therapy and moved into radiopharmaceuticals.

The strategy change was mainly reflected in the company’s operating income for the year which fell by 5% to $8.2 billion due to restructuring and takeovers costs.

Sphere Fluidics Ltd has raised $2 million from investors to accelerate growth and support the sales of its single cell analysis system which is used to recognise biological targets and improve antibody discovery.

The funds were provided by Greenwood Way Capital, Oxford Technology and Innovations EIS Fund and 24Haymarket.

Sphere Fluidics is located in Babraham, Cambridgeshire, UK and Monmouth Junction, New Jersey, US.

The US Food and Drug Administration has given ‘fast track’ status to a prospective antibody treatment wholly-owned by Innate Pharma SA for the treatment of Sézary syndrome, an aggressive form of cutaneous T cell lymphoma.

A fast track designation enables the developers of promising drugs the opportunity for an expedited review. In this case the drug, IPH4102, produced favourable Phase 1 data in adult patients who had relapsed after receiving at least two prior therapies.

A US district court has ruled against MorphoSys AG in a patent infringement suit that the Germany company brought against Genmab A/S and its partner Janssen Biotech Inc relating to Darzalex (daratumumab), their marketed drug for multiple myeloma.

The decision, by the District Court of Delaware, means that MorphoSys’ claims for damage have been rejected and its three US patents for a similar drug have been declared invalid.

The Belgian molecular diagnostics company Biocartis Group NV has raised €55.5 million in a private share placement to support the commercialisation of its molecular diagnostics, particularly for the detection of cancer.

The company’s diagnostics platform uses a real-time polymerase chain reaction system to derive information from biological samples in a wide variety of settings. The company is expanding in oncology and currently has tests supporting the detection of melanoma and colorectal and lung cancers.

BioNTech AG is to expand its drug discovery capabilities following an agreement with MAB Discovery GmbH to acquire that company’s antibody generation unit. The two companies, both based in Germany, have been collaborating since 2013. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.