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Trying to keep up with all the news coming out of ESMO? Well, other than the special event section below, we’ll also be updating the website throughout the weekend. If you prefer a summary, join Arsalan Arif and John Carroll for a
virtual recap and analysis
on Monday, when we will also publish a special report.
Bristol Myers Squibb scores TYK2 OK
Bristol Myers Squibb made a megablockbuster bet on deucravacitinib, the experimental TYK2 drug the company landed in the Celgene buyout, keeping it while auctioning off the rival Otezla to Amgen for $13.4 billion. Friday evening, that bet paid off in a landmark win, with Bristol Myers getting a green light to sell the first-in-class oral psoriasis drug — as Sotyktu (get it?) — for $75,000 a year as analysts project peak sales in the $3 billion-plus range. And there’s a
big bonus
.
ARCH backs mRNA platform play
John Maraganore
— who led the charge of pioneering RNA interference at
Alnylam
— is
co-founding a new platform company
to explore everything else in the RNA field. There’s no number on how much
Orbital
will raise yet, but
ARCH
,
a16z
and
Newpath Partners
are clearly ready to bet however big they need.
Beam
is helping seed the startup with a suite of linear RNA and lipid nanoparticle knowhow, which will be combined with several new technologies from Orbital’s star scientific co-founders. Beam president/CSO
Giuseppe
Ciaramella
, an early
Moderna
employee, is the interim CEO.
Illumina’s $8B conundrum
In a whiplash blow to the sequencing giant, European regulators
blocked
Illumina’s
$8 billion acquisition
of
Grail
just days after it prevailed over an FTC challenge. The EC said the deal would have stifled innovation and granted Illumina an unfair advantage over rivals in the blood-based cancer screening market. And as Jared Whitlock writes, that leaves Illumina
with few good options moving forward
— with divestiture seeming most likely.
Sizing up Alnylam’s win
Amid much anticipation,
Alnylam
detailed positive APOLLO-B data
for its pivotal trial of patisiran in treating transthyretin-mediated — or ATTR — amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy. And the results spell out a clear advantage over a placebo in preventing a rapid decline in a 6-minute walk test. But bound to get immediate attention are unanswered questions on the drug’s health benefits and how the drug and placebo data tracked in the study for an increasingly common heart ailment compared to the disaster that befell a rival therapy at
BridgeBio
.
Two preclinical deals for Roche
Roche
is on the hunt for something new. In search of first-in-class projects, it tapped
PhoreMost
, a small biotech working out of Cambridge, UK, for a target discovery pact in which PhoreMost will
deploy its screening platform
— which searches for the right pockets in target proteins to bind with — toward certain pathways in hematology and immunology selected by
Roche
. Days later, it bought out
Good Therapeutics
and its PD-1 modulated IL-2 program for
$250 million in upfront cash
, plus milestones. The rest of Good will be spun into a new company called Bonum.
Adcomm thumbs up for Amylyx
Second time’s the charm for
Amylyx
and its experimental ALS drug. In an unusual twist, outside experts on an FDA advisory committee
voted 7-2 in favor of approving
AMX0035
, just months after voting against the drug in a first adcomm. Even more unusual was a promise from both CDER’s neuroscience director
Billy Dunn
and Amylyx’s co-CEOs that AMX0035 would be pulled from the market if the drug fails its ongoing Phase III PHOENIX trial.
PREMIUM
Where did funny go?
What happened to humor in pharma advertising? That’s the question Endpoints MarketingRx editor Beth Bulik
decided to delve into for her weekly feature
. While survey results suggest people still want brands and marketing to be funny, business leaders overwhelmingly say they are afraid of using humor in messages to customers. She talks to experts about how they strike the balance and find the right place, right time, right people to be funny with.
#ESMO22
Ever since
Roche
nabbed a landmark approval for its PD-L1
Tecentriq
in liver cancer In 2020, a number of drugmakers have tested their checkpoint inhibitors for the same indication. Three of them —
Merck
and
Eisai
with a
Keytruda
/
Lenvima
combo,
Jiangsu Hengrui
and
Elevar
with a
camrelizumab
/
rivoceranib
pairing and
BeiGene
with
tislelizumab
alone — spelled out their findings.
And they’re all different
.
Relay Therapeutics
had steadily raised the bar for
RLY-4008
, its bile duct cancer drug for a narrow group of patients with FGFR2-altered cholangiocarcinoma. And now it’s arriving in Paris with an
improved performance
that appears to pave a direct path to a quick approval. The ORR, as an analyst observes, is more than double that of the pan-FGFR inhibitors now in use.
This weekend at ESMO, the KRAS battle between
Amgen
and its pesky biotech rivals at
Mirati
will continue with new slices of combo data for advanced cases of colorectal cancer. And once again, Mirati
will get in with a solid punch
. Both of them have updated data on their KRAS drugs in combination with an EGFR inhibitor.
The long-awaited OS data for
Gilead’s Trodelvy
are finally in — the results that were touted as
“clinically meaningful”
for a subset of metastatic breast cancer patients. And at a median OS of 14.4 months versus 11.2 months for chemotherapy, the results were a bit better than analysts had predicted.
A little more than four years after
Bristol Myers Squibb
proudly unveiled a $3.6 billion, next-gen I/O alliance with
Nektar
, investigators turned up at ESMO with the
full set of disastrous data
that helped ice the whole deal. Not only did
Opdivo
plus Nektar’s IL-2 therapy bempeg flunk a Phase III melanoma study, the combo actually performed significantly worse than Opdivo alone.
Long-term data on
AstraZeneca
and
Merck’s
blockbuster cancer drug and European confab staple
Lynparza
were a mixed bag
. While the drug ushered in the PARP inhibitor market in 2014, five-year follow-up results in the first-line advanced ovarian cancer setting missed statistical significance on OS, even though the absolute numbers are still good.
A few months ago, while rumors were swirling about a potential
Merck
buyout,
Seagen
posted a topline look at its
Padcev
–
Keytruda
combo as a first-line therapy for advanced bladder cancer. An ESMO abstract filled in some of the gaps in the data and
offered a look at durability
, although some important metrics remain unanswered.
On the cusp of asking the FDA to approve its cancer drug for progressing desmoid tumors,
SpringWorks
is out with a fuller picture
of the therapy’s performance in a Phase III trial four months after declaring a topline win. But ahead of its scheduled presentation, it also teed up a $225 million private placement and an expanded pact with
GSK
on a
Blenrep
combination.
Merck
came into ESMO confident that it reigned supreme in the adjuvant setting for renal cell carcinoma — the new frontier for checkpoint inhibitors. Data from
Roche
and
Bristol Myers Squibb
only
serve to highlight Merck’s dominance
, as it spelled out the latest, improved hazard ratio for King
Keytruda
, cutting risks on disease-free survival by 37%.
Bristol Myers Squibb’s
dual
Opdivo
/
Yervoy
immunotherapy strategy
is seeing mixed data
in kidney cancer. While Bristol Myers’ own Phase III study failed the primary endpoint of disease-free survival,
Exelixis
is showcasing Phase III data where a combination of
Cabometyx
with Opdivo and Yervoy improved PFS over the PD-1/CTLA-4 combo alone. But toxicities may cast a shadow over their use.
No stranger to big conference presentations,
Merck’s
heavyweight
Keytruda
is back with a hit and a miss
. The first, testing the drug in the neoadjuvant or adjuvant setting for melanoma, delivered positive event-free survival data. The other, focused on head and neck cancer, failed to hit statistical significance despite what the company calls a favorable trend.
Eager to prove its cell therapy,
Adaptimmune
presented the newest Phase I
SURPASS trial data for its MAGE-A4 program. Among 44 patients who received a single dose of the therapy (all evaluable except for one), investigators tracked a 44% ORR. But two deaths were also recorded as related to the treatment.
AstraZeneca
spinout
Dizal
said its cancer drug cleared the primary goal in a Phase II trial of lung cancer patients in China with EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations.
Touting an ORR of 59.8%
, Dizal will be going against
Takeda
and
J&J
, both of which have approved meds for this subgroup, as well as others like
Cullinan Oncology
and
Blueprint Medicines
.
STARTUPS
There’s a plethora of protein degradation biotechs, and a smaller handful of protein stabilization players, but
Lizzie
Ngo
was searching for something more. The principal at
Longwood Fund
landed on an idea surrounding the activation, inactivation and trafficking of proteins by coopting phosphorylation.
Photys Therapeutics
is
launching with a $75 million
initial haul.
Unlike in other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, the pathology of Parkinson’s is relatively well-understood. But the knowledge has yet to translate into newer, more effective therapies.
Innervace
, a new biotech launched out of Penn and backed by
Deerfield
, wants to change that with a procedure called deep brain stimulation. The Series A
comes in at $40 million
.
With a sharp eye on transcription — the process of creating RNA from DNA — Colorado-based
Arpeggio Biosciences
raised $17 million in a Series A
round, two years after a $3.2 million seed round and four years after creation. While transcription factors are hard to drug directly, the biotech hopes to design and screen molecules that can alter the transcripts.
FINANCING
If
ArsenalBio
does it right, its first CAR-T candidate — a potential treatment for ovarian cancer — will be in the clinic later this year. And a group of deep-pocketed investors is
handing over $220 million
to push it along. The planned trial will mark a big test for ArsenalBio’s suite of technologies, which promise to overcome the barriers keeping CAR-T from solid tumors.
Joel Dudley’s
first investment since joining former
Google
CEO
Eric Schmidt’s
firm is an
$8 million seed round
for
Harmonic
Discovery
, which is building a platform to design small molecule drugs that can target multiple proteins at the same time, with a special focus on kinases and an eye to utilizing machine learning to help with the process.
DEALS
It’s time to turn off the lights at
Metacrine
. The party ended months ago for the
Rich Heyman
startup, which came out of the IPO gate in 2020 with high hopes of pursuing a drug for NASH. It’s
being bought out by another struggling biotech
,
Equillium
, which made it clear that it was primarily interested in Metacrine’s cash balance and doesn’t plan on retaining the employees.
After whittling itself down from 41 to just six employees following a fruitless readout on its blood disorder drug earlier this year,
Imara
found a buyer
to exchange the drug for cash. Imara will be selling its sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia drug to
Cardurion
Pharmaceuticals
, a cardio upstart that got $300 million from
Bain
last year. The deal is for $35 million upfront, with some biobucks attached.
In March,
Zealand Pharma
gutted its US workforce and said it was looking for strategic partnerships for its diabetes products following a disappointing first year on the market for its diabetes treatment
Zegalogue
. It found the partner in
Novo Nordisk
, which is
paying about $3.3 million
upfront to take over worldwide marketing.
Having scored their first FDA approval, the dermatology specialists at
Arcutis
pounced on a new buyout to beef up the pipeline. They are acquiring
Ducentis BioTherapeutics
in a hybrid deal
comprising $16 million in cash
and roughly $14 million in stock, mainly to get their hands on a preclinical checkpoint agonist that they believe can work well with their lead drug.
Basilea Pharmaceutica
is one more step closer to its final days as an oncology company. As part of its pivot to anti-infectives, the Swiss company
sold its preclinical PARG
checkpoint inhibitor program to UK-based
Nodus Oncology
in exchange for upfront and near-term research milestone payments of just over $1 million, plus milestones.
As the CRO industry continues to consolidate, another company is looking to get in on the multinational action
with its latest move
.
Avance Clinical
, an Australian-based CRO, acquired US-based research organization
C3 Research
Associates
, giving the company a solid foothold on North American soil. The private equity group Riverside backed Avance’s move.
CORONAVIRUS
Less than a week after the FDA signed off on Omicron-specific bivalent Covid vaccines from both
Moderna
and
Pfizer
, federal health officials announced that the shots will be available to most Americans by the end of the week as
shipping of doses has begun nationwide
. They believe that could prevent up to 100,000 hospitalizations this fall and winter.
As
Moderna
pivots away from Covid-19 to other vaccines, the mRNA-focused biotech is still plotting how it could hit $13 billion in annual US Covid-19 vaccine sales,
with $100 shots
and 50% of all adults getting a booster. The company noted it will move to value-based pricing as it moves from the pandemic setting to the commercial market.
Searching for ways to treat long Covid, a new collaboration — bringing together researchers from leading institutes in academia — will hone in on what the virus does to “drive chronic disease,” research how SARS-CoV-2 affects the immune system and what effects it could have on cognitive function, nerve signaling and other processes. Two billionaires are backing the project with
$15 million to start things off
.
The FDA is now following through on an emergency use filing for a repurposed cancer drug that European regulators initially took an interest in. The agency will
convene an adcomm
to discuss
Veru’s
EUA — specifically, combing over the treatment effect size given “the high placebo mortality rate, the limited size of the safety database, and identifying the proposed population.”
R&D
After a scandal involving doctored images, a very public board fight and a Phase II fail took the wind out of its sails,
Athira
plotted a comeback
for its unconventional approach to treating Alzheimer’s. In amending the failed Phase II trial to include new measurements — and shining a spotlight on a biomarker called neurofilament — it also hints at a possible accelerated approval pitch.
Moderna
CEO
Stéphane Bancel’s
vision to become a 40-drug company is materializing at a time analysts say the urgency is increasing for it to deliver on programs outside of Covid-19. Going through its mRNA pipeline for the annual R&D day, the biotech
spotlighted some early data
for orphan drug programs while previewing key vaccine readouts.
It’s challenging enough to get one cancer drug approved. But it looks like
Erasca
is gunning for its two lead candidates
in combination — though both are still in very early stages. Pooling the analysis of its two ongoing trials — one for an ERK1/2 inhibitor and the other for an SHP2 inhibitor — the company says it will begin dose escalation for the combo soon.
Less than two months after expanding its immuno-oncology partnership with
Roche’s
Genentech
,
Bicycle Therapeutics
touted some new in-house data
on its lead program. While execs viewed the data as positive, with a handful of responses among a dozen very sick patients, analysts were
Several years after securing $100 million cash to pursue its lead drug in certain allergic and inflammatory diseases, one-time high flier
Allakos
is now
pivoting its R&D efforts
to other diseases and another potential candidate. The Phase III study tested its lead drug in confirmed eosinophilic duodenitis, and it met one co-primary endpoint but missed the other.
Eye-focused biotech
Iveric
Bio
reported positive Phase III results for its injectable complement C5 protein inhibitor, saying it
met the primary endpoint
of the mean rate of growth in geographic atrophy over 12 months. Building on its first Phase III win, the readout paves the way for an NDA filing by the end of Q1 next year.
Pacira Biosciences
is hoping that the latest data surrounding its non-opioid painkiller
will expand its usage post-surgery
. Presenting topline results from a Phase III study investigating its bupivacaine-based treatment
Exparel
for post-surgical use in patients undergoing a total knee replacement, the company reported that the drug hit the primary endpoint in pain scores compared with a different formulation.
PHARMA
The FDA
approved
AstraZeneca’s
PD-L1
Imfinzi
in combo with
gemcitabine
and
cisplatin
for advanced biliary tract cancer, making it the first immunotherapy for this patient group. The combo was shown to improve overall survival in a Phase III trial, surprising many as both
Keytruda
and
Opdivo
failed in this setting.
Revance Therapeutics
finally landed an FDA approval
for its
Botox
competitor, known as
Daxxify
final, after initially submitting the original BLA way back in January 2020. The botulinum toxin products will compete to temporarily improve moderate to severe frown lines — what Revance estimates is a $3.2 billion and growing market. The hope is that its longer-lasting property will make a difference.
In an effort to push a high-dose version of
Eylea
,
Regeneron
unveiled a pair of trial wins
, securing a way to unlock a likely extension to its multibillion-dollar franchise. The higher dose lends itself to longer dosing regimens, and both trials hit noninferiority in vision gains for patients with diabetic macular edema and wet age-related macular degeneration.
It’s time to review and revise federal guidance on pharma manufacturers’ donations to patient assistant charities,
according to a new study
that takes a deep look into drugmakers’ incentives by calculating patients’ cost sharing and manufacturers’ revenues. The authors conclude that the leading companies would find it profitable to donate, which violates the spirit of anti-kickback statutes.
While just three brand-name inhalers approved between 1986 and 2020 now face generic competition, the same sort of long monopoly extensions are not as prevalent for nebulizers,
a new study published
in
Nature Biotechnology
explains. To address the ways developers obtain a longer period of exclusivity, the author pointed to regulatory reforms.
Ofev
was one of
Boehringer Ingelheim’s
top sellers in the first half of this year, raking in a whopping $1.48 billion. Now the German pharma giant
wants to expand
into the small group of pediatric patients with lung scarring diseases, with Phase III results in hand suggesting its dosing regimen works in kids.
LAW
J&J
has settled a case
with a former employee who accused top execs — including former CEO
Alex Gorsky
and former R&D head
Matthai Mammen
— of gender discrimination and retaliation leading up to her eventual termination after 25 years with the pharma giant. The case was dismissed with prejudice on Aug. 8, after the dispute had been “amicably resolved,” according to court documents released a week ago.
While the SPAC market continues to oscillate between inked deals, nixed agreements and pulled IPOs,
Perceptive Advisors
will have to
pony up $1.5 million
to the SEC for what the regulator deemed “conflicts of interest” related to blank check dealings. Perceptive, which founded multiple SPACs, was charged for failing to disclose its ownership of sponsors of SPACs into which it advised clients to invest. The firm said it’s cooperating with the SEC.
Once riding high with a market value close to $1 billion,
Geron
settled an
investor lawsuit for $24 million
. Stockholders claimed the company wrongly touted early data for a
Janssen
-partnered cancer drug candidate and failed to reveal the actual disappointing primary endpoint results, something they realized after reading news reports from STAT’s Adam Feuerstein.
Teva
fired back at
GSK
after the UK-based drugmaker sought to squash Teva’s attempt to get its “skinny” label case overturned by the US Supreme Court. In a reply, Teva slammed GSK’s claims around these label carve-outs and noted that the previous ruling in GSK’s favor “is more than just a misapplication of settled precedent: it is an about-face.”
The former CEO of a South Florida-based contract drug manufacturer has been
sentenced to more than three years
in federal prison over repeatedly lying to the FDA and allowing contaminated products to be sent to children’s hospitals.
Raidel Figueroa
was charged as part of an investigation into an outbreak of infections linked to Burkholderia cepacia, or B. cepacia.
More than a decade after its first day in court,
Bayer
is finally settling two whistleblower cases. The German drugmaker
agreed to pay a $40 million fine
to resolve allegations that it downplayed the safety risks of a statin drug and paid kickbacks to doctors and hospitals to convince them to prescribe two of its other drugs.
MARKETINGRX
Pharma’s big swing to digital advertising is finally losing steam — but still growing at a double-digit pace. While the pace is slowing down compared to the pandemic rush, a new report
predicts $15.8 billion in 2022 spending
, a 14% increase year over year. Based on this trend, the industry would hit just shy of $20 billion by 2024.
Continuing its effort to address the racial disparity that’s particularly pronounced in dermatological conditions,
Kyowa Kirin
is re-boosting the “Look Deeper at CTCL” campaign
during Lymphoma Awareness Month with social media and digital posts aimed at raising awareness in the Black community about the rare cancer.
Genentech
and
Novartis
are
once again partnering
with a well-known comedian to raise awareness of chronic idiopathic urticaria, also known as chronic spontaneous urticaria.
Vicki
Lawrence
, known for her work as a cast member on “The Carol Burnett Show,” has been speaking out about her condition as “the face of hives.” New digital and social posts are re-upping the work and spotlighting the condition again.
Physicians’ empathy for patients sometimes comes from personal experience. That’s the case in
Sun Pharma’s
new campaign with 10 dermatology healthcare providers who talk about their
personal experiences with acne
. Sun’s dermatology business includes several acne treatments, and the company hopes it may help patients better relate to their doctors.
Does your pharma brand speak Spanish? Not just translating advertising copy into the language, but authentically speaking to people with consideration of different Hispanic cultures? That’s what pharma brands should be doing if they want to
reach the “crucial” Hispanic audience
, according to
Publicis Health
Media
.
Pfizer
is amping its science push this month with a round of new Facebook ads featuring bolder-than-norms pop culture takes;
Bristol Myers Squibb
and Jazz funded three new Stand Up To Cancer research teams for lung cancer and Ewing sarcoma; The American Lung Association teams with Sanofi to remind people, especially those with chronic medical conditions; to get their flu shots — learn more in the
MarketingRx roundup
.
FDA+
As Florida Gov.
Ron DeSantis
publicly feuds with the FDA after accusing the federal agency of dragging its feet on approving the state’s drug import plan, Colorado is announcing its
own drug importation partnership
with a handful of companies, including a Canadian subsidiary, in an attempt to bring down drug prices.
The FDA’s monthslong trial hold on
Sarepta Therapeutics’
next-gen Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug
is out the door
after the biotech and regulator hashed out a new global trial protocol to expand monitoring of urine biomarkers. The hold was first issued after a serious adverse event of low magnesium levels in one patient’s blood was observed.
Almost a dozen new
Humira
biosimilars will finally launch in the US next year, beginning with
Amgen’s
in January (almost four years behind Europe). But
Alvotech
, which developers one of the top follow-on contenders, with a higher concentration version and a potential interchangeable designation to boot,
was slammed with a rejection
due to manufacturing issues.
Neulasta
, one of
Amgen’s
oldest drug franchises, has another biosimilar to contend with. German pharma
Fresenius Kabi
got its
pegfilgrastim
biosimilar approved by the FDA
, and it will be marketed as
Stimufend
as a therapy for neutropenia.
In a push to bring in new drug development tools, the FDA
officially kicked off a pilot program
designed to expand its qualification of those out-of-scope drug development tools by selecting
Integral Molecular’s
Membrane Proteome Array as the first participant. The cell-based array is used to evaluate off-target protein binding.
Eight years after the last version of guidance on pediatric clinical pharmacology studies, the FDA
released updated draft guidance
focusing on how sponsors of new drugs and biologics can best identify the appropriate pediatric doses of their developing products, as well as how to use disease and exposure-response knowledge from prior studies to inform future pediatric development.
MANUFACTURING
The latest leg of
Merck KGaA’s
expansion drive
will take place in mainland Europe. It’s looking to invest around $129 million into single-use assemblies as part of the production of Covid-19 vaccines and other therapeutics at its site in Molsheim, France, while building what it is calling the Launch and Technology Center in the city of Darmstadt, Germany. The $159.3 million center will look to produce small molecule-based drugs for clinical trials and eventual production.
Cell therapy player
Orca Bio
will expand its manufacturing capabilities by constructing a
new 100,000-square-foot commercial facility
in Sacramento, CA. As it starts a Phase III trial, the biotech says it wants dedicated space for its late-stage pipeline in addition to an existing facility for early-stage work.
Two years into the implementation of a requirement for manufacturers to report data annually to the FDA, the agency
hosted a webinar to clarify the guidance
. Several manufacturers and consultants also explained some of the challenges faced in reporting and what could be done to make the process smoother in the future.
Pharma manufacturing in Virginia is getting a large boost from the US Department of Commerce, which is
dishing out $52.9 million
in grants to support new capabilities and training programs for essential generic medicines. The plan is for a local manufacturing cluster to eventually increase the domestic supply of APIs.
An FDA inspection
found several issues
including spore-related contamination and missing logbooks in the manufacturing area at a site in the city of Chuncheon, South Korea, according to a Form 483. The inspection took place at a factory for
Hugel
, a maker of botulinum toxin(s), dermal fillers and other aesthetic products.
Catalent
is looking to expand its clinical supply facility in Singapore;
Cambrex
, a drug substance, drug product and analytical services provider, completed the first phase of its $30 million expansion in North Carolina; HHS awarded a $19.8 million monkeypox vaccine distribution contract to
AmerisourceBergen
; make sure you don’t miss a beat by checking out our
roundup of small manufacturing news
.
DON’T MISS
Health inequity in the US increasingly drew attention through the pandemic, with long-existing disparities exacerbated — and spurring financial support and promises of help from pharma companies. Now the
Merck Foundation
is taking a step further with a
new $20 million fund
to focus equity efforts specifically on cancer care.
Pharma companies and advocates
condemned a federal judge’s ruling
that a Texas business shouldn’t be required to cover HIV-prevention drugs under religious freedom law. According to them, thousands of patients could be affected.
ViiV
, which markets a suite of PrEP drugs, says it expects the final ruling to be appealed.