Eli Lilly and Company is to acquire Dermira Inc, a US medical dermatology company, for $1.1 billion in an all-cash transaction in order to expand its immunology pipeline. Dermira’s most advanced clinical programme, lebrikizumab, is a monoclonal antibody for moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis. The company also has a marketed product for the topical treatment of primary axillary hyperhidrosis, a rare sweating disorder.
CureVac AG has reported positive Phase 1 data from a trial in healthy volunteers of an experimental rabies vaccine based on messenger RNA (mRNA). The prophylactic vaccine, CV7202, encodes the rabies virus glycoprotein RABV-G in a lipid nanoparticle formulation.
The Swedish company Galecto Biotech AB is to merge with PharmAkea Inc of San Diego, US in order to build critical mass in the fields of fibrosis and cancer. Galecto has a pipeline of drug candidates targeting galectin-3, a protein linked with organ fibrosis. Financial details of the merger were not disclosed.
Evotec SE, which claims to have one of the industry’s biggest platforms for developing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, has further expanded its partnership activities in the field. Under a 2016 agreement with Celgene Corp, now part of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Evotec has been using iPS cells to identify prospective treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. This agreement has now been broadened to include additional cell lines. The cell lines were not identified.
A venture capital fund set up in 2018 to invest in early-stage companies with novel antibiotic programmes is to dispense nearly $12 million to companies in France and the US. They are Mutabilis SA, which is developing antibacterials against Gram-negative infections and IBT Vaccines, a subsidiary of Integrated Biotherapeutics Inc, which has an experimental vaccine for Staphylococcus aureus in development.
Mutabilis of Romainville, France will receive €7 million ($7.83 million) and IBT of Rockville, Maryland, US will receive $3.9 million.
Preclinical data from tests of an experimental vaccine for solid tumours have shown complete tumour regression of transplanted human tumours in mice, according to the vaccine’s developer BioNTech SE. The RNA vaccine was designed to drive the expansion of an autologous CAR T cell therapy in vivo, thereby enabling the cell therapy to infiltrate solid tumours. Results of the study were published in Science on 2 January.
Expedeon AG has completed the sale of its proteomics and immunology business to Abcam Plc of the UK for €120 million, leading to a repositioning of the company as a provider of genomics services. Based in Heidelberg, Germany, Expedeon will in future focus on manufacturing DNA for use in gene therapies and gene-based vaccines. It will henceforth go by the name 4basebio AG and will continue to be listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Lynparza (olaparib) has been approved in the US as a first-line maintenance treatment for metastatic pancreatic cancer, the first therapy of its type to show a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival in patients with the disease. The Food and Drug Administration announced the approval on 30 December on the basis of data from a Phase 3 trial of 154 patients who had germline BRCA-mutated pancreatic cancer.
Patients will be eligible for the drug based on an FDA-approved companion diagnostic.
Business hubs where life science companies co-locate in order to share infrastructure exist almost everywhere. But not all business hubs support basic science, let alone national healthcare systems. EIT Health is different. The group is part of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology which was set up in 2015 to promote the interface between industry, science and public healthcare systems. At conference in Paris on 2 to 3 December, members of the consortium met to discuss issues facing healthcare – and to congratulate a new crop of entrepreneurs.
Syncona Ltd has committed $80 million in new capital to Freeline Therapeutics Ltd which has a candidate gene therapy for haemophilia B in early clinical development. The Series C financing consists of two tranches, of which the first $40 million is being dispensed to support an expansion of manufacturing and clinical development activities, Freeline announced on 19 December.