A bidding contest between Philip Morris and Carlyle, a private equity firm, for ownership of Vectura Group Plc has ended with the cigarette company winning control of the UK pharma group. On 12 August, the Vectura board accepted a final offer from Philip Morris of 165 pence per share to acquire the company, giving a total enterprise value of £1.1 billion.
Mission Therapeutics Ltd has reached an important threshold in a three-year old collaboration with AbbVie Inc aimed at degrading the toxic proteins in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The event was the selection of two enzyme targets for the development of new small molecule drugs for these diseases, which are the most common neurological disorders worldwide. It triggered a $20 million milestone payment to Mission, announced on 9 August.
Evotec SE continued to build its global service business in the first half of 2021 with the completion of a new biologics plant in the US, ownership of an R&D site in Verona, Italy, and new and expanded partnerships with pharma companies to co-develop compounds for multiple diseases. At the end of the first half, the company had more than 130 co-owned assets in its portfolio, potentially capable of delivering income in the form of royalty payments from 2024 onwards.
Novo Nordisk A/S reported turnover of DKK 66.8 billion (€8.98 billion) in the first half, up by 5% from the previous year, lifted by sales of its glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) medicines for diabetes. The three medicines in this group, Rybelsus, Ozempic and Victoza, had sales of DKK 23.4 billion, or more than a third of total group revenue.
H. Lundbeck A/S has entered a collaboration with a US start-up company specialising in small molecules that target RNA, as part of a drive to expand its portfolio of medicines for central nervous system disorders. The collaboration is with Rgenta Therapeutics Inc of Cambridge, Mass, US, which has technology for identifying regulatory sites in RNA that are amenable for modulation by small molecules.
A new enzyme replacement therapy for Pompe disease has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, which has been shown to help reduce glycogen accumulation in muscles – a feature of the disease. The therapy, Nexviazyme (avalglucosidase), is a version of Myozyme (alglucosidase alfa), which was approved by the FDA in 2006. Both therapies were developed by Genzyme, which is part of Sanofi SA.
A new biologic for systemic lupus erythematosus has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, marking the first innovation in the treatment of the disease in more than a decade, the sponsor AstraZeneca Plc announced on 2 August. Saphnelo (anifrolumab) blocks a receptor in the type 1 interferon pathway preventing aberrant activation of the immune system. It is this activation that can cause immune cells to mistakenly attack healthy tissues in the body, a hallmark of lupus.
A bidding contest between Philip Morris and Carlyle, a private equity firm, for ownership of the UK pharma company Vectura Group Plc has taken an unexpected turn. Vectura’s board of directors has received a higher offer for the company from Carlyle and has announced plans to recommend that shareholders approve it. This comes just a month after the board recommended an offer from Philip Morris International, which in turn had outbid an earlier offer from Carlyle.
A single dose vaccine in development to protect against the chikungunya virus has been shown to be effective with no safety concerns, the sponsor Valneva SE announced on 5 August. The vaccine VLA1553 met its primary endpoint in a Phase 3 pivotal trial achieving a seroprotection rate of 98.5% - well above the 70% threshold set by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Bayer AG has expanded its oncology portfolio with the acquisition of Vividion Therapeutics Inc of the US and its proprietary drug discovery platform. Vividion’s technology involves identifying previously unknown pockets on well-validated protein targets implicated in a wide range of diseases. The company’s lead programmes are small molecule drugs targeting NRF2 mutant cancers as well as NRF2 activators for a number of inflammatory diseases. NRF2 is a protein that helps regulate the work of antioxidant proteins that protect against oxidative damage.