George Scangos’ Bold Vision

This opinion piece presents the opinions of the author. It does not necessarily reflect the views of BioSpace.

Founded just last year and helmed by former Biogen and Exelixis chief exec George Scangos, Vir Biotechnology has wasted no time making a big splash. The company announced a series of agreements, covering Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Visterra, Humabs Biomed, and four academic institutions. Despite its youth, Vir is acting as the senior partner in these deals, leveraging the more than $500 million in financing it has received to date. It’s acquiring Humabs outright, while taking on Alnylam’s hepatitis B program (plus up to four other infectious disease targets), and license and option agreements covering up to six Visterra infectious disease programs.

Here’s a roundup of these stories and other top deals and partnerships from the past month.

• Vir Biotechnology Builds Pipeline, Capabilities, And Lays Out Strategy To Address Serious Infectious Diseases
  
• Celgene Cuddles Up With Another Cambridge Biotech, This Time to Tackle Autoimmune Diseases
  
• Small Cambridge Biotech Warp Bio Scores $387M R&D Pact With Drug Giant Roche
  
• Eli Lilly Strikes $1.8B mRNA R&D Pact With CureVac
  
• AstraZeneca Inks R&D Deal With Ramaswamy’s Roivant for Hush-Hush Indication

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