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Capstan Therapeutics\' CPTX2309 consists of an anti-CD19 CAR mRNA payload inside a lipid nanoparticle.\n AbbVie is making a full strength play for the in vivo CAR-T market, snapping up Capstan Therapeutics for $2.1 billion to add an early-phase autoimmune drug candidate to its pipeline.Capstan is part of a band of biotechs trying to clear barriers to CAR-T uptake by reprogramming cells inside—rather than outside—the body. Manufacturing and scalability challenges, plus the need for patients to receive lymphodepleting chemotherapy, could prevent widespread use of traditional CAR-T cell therapies. In theory, in vivo CAR-T therapies could allow more people to receive powerful therapies.AbbVie is on board with the idea. The Big Pharma will pay up to $2.1 billion in cash at closing to acquire Capstan. In return, AbbVie will take ownership of the phase 1 in vivo anti-CD19 CAR-T therapy candidate CPTX2309 plus preclinical programs and the technology for generating more prospects.A phase 1 study of CPTX2309 in healthy volunteers got underway in Australia in April. Capstan is running the trial to find a pharmacologically active dose to take into phase 2 studies in patients with autoimmune disease. Rival in vivo CAR-T biotechs Interius BioTherapeutics and Umoja Biopharma beat Capstan in the race to the clinic. However, the rival biotechs are both initially targeting cancers, not autoimmune diseases, and use different technology than Capstan. Interius’ INT2104 and Umoja’s UB-VV111 use lentiviral vectors to generate CAR cells in vivo. Capstan is using mRNA to trigger CAR T-cell production.CPTX2309 consists of an anti-CD19 CAR mRNA payload inside a lipid nanoparticle (LNP). The LNP has a targeting antibody to enable the delivery of the payload to CD8-positive T cells. In preclinical studies, the candidate selectively engineered human CD8-positive T cells into functional CAR-T cells. In theory, the candidate could replicate the striking efficacy seen in autoimmune studies of conventional CD19 CAR-T therapies without facing the challenges that could limit ex vivo treatments to particularly sick patients. The potential puts CPTX2309 in the wheelhouse of AbbVie, a drugmaker that brushed off the loss of company-defining autoimmune drug Humira by rolling out Skyrizi and Rinvoq as successors.Buying Capstan could unlock opportunities in other therapeutic areas. The biotech’s preclinical pipeline includes a BCMA program, which has applications in oncology and autoimmune disease, and a fibroblast target that could extend its reach into fibrotic disorders. A who’s who of top pharma companies took a look at the pipeline, helping Capstan raise more than $300 million, before AbbVie bagged the buyout.

Behind the success of its diabetes and obesity treatments, Eli Lilly is set up to become the top-selling company in the biopharma industry by 2030, according to Evaluate Pharma, with projected revenue exceeding $100 billion. Fueled by a sustained boom in sales of its diabetes and obesity products, Eli Lilly will become the world’s top-seller of prescription drugs by 2030 and will hold the top rung by a wide margin. according to data analytics specialist Evaluate Pharma in its 2030 projection.In its “World Preview 2025" report, Evaluate projects that Lilly’s prescription drug sales will reach $113 billion, well ahead of second-place Novo Nordisk, which has drawn an $84 billion estimate for 2030.The common thread between Lilly and Novo, of course, is their dominance of the diabetes/obesity market, which Evaluate figures will grow at a 20% annual clip between 2024 and 2030. Evaluate sees Lilly taking more advantage of the growth, increasing its prescription drug sales from $41 billion last year, while the analysts expect Novo will double its sales over the period from $42 billion in 2024.“By [2030], GLP-1 agonists and related combinations will comprise close to 9% of all prescription drug sales,” Evaluate wrote. “GLP-1-based drugs are now a category apart, projected to reach hitherto unseen sales peaks.” In 2030, Evaluate projects Lilly’s diabetes treatment Mounjaro will be the world’s top-selling drug, generating $46 billion, while the company’s obesity medicine Zepbound will be the third-best seller at $25.5 billion.Meanwhile, three Novo GLP-1 drugs are projected by Evaluate to be among the world’s top 10—Ozempic ($24.4 billion), Wegovy ($18.1 billion) and next-generation obesity drug Cagrisema ($15.2 billion), which has yet to be approved.In addition to Cagrisema, Evaluate places three other clinical-stage obesity treatments on its list of 10 top-selling drugs in 2030. Two of the candidates are in Lilly’s pipeline—oral GLP-1 treatment orforglipron, which is pegged for 2030 sales of $12.7 billion, and triple-action retatrutide, which has drawn a projection of $5.6 billion. The other projected top-selling obesity candidate is Amgen’s MariTide, with $3.7 billion in estimated 2030 sales.Company breakdownAccording to Evaluate, Lilly and Novo’s juggernaut trajectory will allow them to quickly surpass the industry’s 2024 leaders in prescription drug sales: 1) Johnson & Johnson ($55.7 billion); 2) AbbVie ($54.5 billion); 3) Merck ($54.3 billion); 4) Roche ($52.5 billion); 5) Pfizer ($52 billion); 6) AstraZeneca ($50.9 billion); 7) Novartis ($50.2 billion).Of those drugmakers, Evaluate sees AbbVie increasing its prescription drug sales the most by 2030, to $75.3 billion, behind its immune-inflammatory duo of Skyrizi, which the analysts see generating $26.6 billion in sales in 2030, and Rinvoq, which is tabbed for $14.8 billion in sales. Evaluate also sees J&J increasing its prescription sales over the next five years, to $67.8 billion, behind oncology standout Darzalex, which the analysts see generating $16.6 billion in sales in 2030.Other companies with significant sales increases over the next five years include Sanofi, which Evaluate envisions will leap from $44.2 billion in 2024 to $64.8 billion, due in major part to Regeneron-partnered Dupixent, which the analysts project to hit $25 billion in sales in 2030.Evaluate also projects a major bump in sales for AstraZeneca from $50.9 billion to $64.4 billion in 2030, thanks in part to Daiichi Sankyo-partnered ADC cancer drug Enhertu, which has been pegged to generate $15.2 billion in sales in 2030. Roche doesn’t have a drug on the top 10 list of projected sales, but Evaluate figures the Swiss company is in line for a solid bump in prescription drug sales from $52.5 billion to $66.3 billion.Evaluate sees Merck’s prescription drug sales increasing from $54.3 billion last year to $60 billion in 2030, which might be a surprise considering an estimated slide in sales of oncology superstar Keytruda from $29.5 billion last year to $17 billion in 2030 after it becomes subject to biosimilar competition in 2028.Credit the company’s formulation of a subcutaneous version of Keytruda, which is up for approval in September and Evaluate has tabbed for $7.6 billion in sales in 2030. The analysts called Mark’s development of subcutaneous Keytruda “a shining case study in life-cycle management.”On the flip side, Evaluate is projecting small sales decreases from Novartis and Pfizer, comparing revenues from 2024 to those expected in 2030.