Deals
Blank check deals dwindled after a crazy 2021. Now, biotechs are starting to turn to special purpose acquisition companies again as an easy route to the public markets.
FEATURED STORIES
After a slow 2024, the biotech shell company Concentra Biosciences is back, offering to buy four biotechs in the past month and seven so far this year.
Sarepta’s troubles had nothing to do with Arrowhead’s assets, and yet both companies have seen their stock prices decline this past month. BioSpace caught up with Arrowhead’s Chris Anzalone to talk about the biotech’s role as an RNAi pipeline savior.
Out-licensing drugs to multinational corporations is a natural step for Chinese biotechs, but the recent rise in deals is only scratching at the surface of partnership-ready biotechs in the region.
Subscribe to BioPharm Executive
Market insights and trending stories for biopharma leaders, in your inbox every Wednesday
THE LATEST
The German giant is looking to develop new drugs for undisclosed eye diseases using Re-Vana’s extended-release injectable platform to supply drugs to the eye for months at a time.
The star of GSK’s Hengrui partnership is the COPD candidate HRS-9821, which will complement the pharma’s respiratory pipeline that’s anchored by the anti-asthma drug Nucala.
The collaboration focuses on ‘molecular gates,’ a class of molecules that the startup company Gate Bioscience says can stop pathogenic proteins from leaving the cell.
The partnership with Matchpoint Therapeutics gets Novartis global rights on all molecules for several unannounced inflammatory diseases identified through the biotech’s discovery platform.
What will Boston Pharmaceuticals CEO Sophie Kornowski do now that the company is selling off its pipeline and winding down operations? Whatever it is, data will take her there.
The deal, which involves a $700 million upfront payment, gives AbbVie access to ISB 2001, a clinical-stage first-in-class trispecific antibody currently being tested for certain kinds of multiple myeloma as well as autoimmune indications.
The deal gives AstraZeneca’s rare disease unit Alexion access to specialized capsids developed by the Japanese biotech JCR Pharmaceuticals for use in up to five of Alexion’s gene therapies.
In the second biggest acquisition of the year, Merck gains the commercial COPD drug Ohtuvayre, which could help offset the loss of revenue when Keytruda’s patent expires later this decade.
Analysts said the deal with Novo was likely giving Hims “‘credibility’ or increased consumer traffic,” adding that the “litigation risk is back on the table” now that the Danish pharma has stepped away.
The deal marks an end for CAR T company Cargo Therapeutics, which has been slashing its workforce and cutting programs since the January decision to halt its lead candidate for a certain type of aggressive large B cell lymphoma.