AbbVie opens up to bigger deals as competition heats up — report; Small radiopharmaceutical player goes public via reverse merger

06 Feb 2023
endpts.com
Phase 1Executive Change
AbbVie is looking to make a push this year on new drugs — and it’s ready to spend for it. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal , AbbVie is keen to replace the potential sales that could be lost from Humira and will be removing its in-house $2 billion limit of the size of its deals to add on more products. AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez told the Journal that the Illinois-based pharma has room to do more deals. The Journal also stated that AbbVie will look to secure four approvals by the end of 2024. Humira has been a major seller for AbbVie, but it going to have greater competition from biosimilars. At the end of January, Amgen launched the first-ever Humira biosimilar in the US, Amjevita, and priced it 55% below Humira’s current price, which is about $84,000 per year, and another at a list price 5% below the current Humira list price. An analyst report from Michael Yee at Jefferies stated that AbbVie has a total of $24.5 billion of revenue at risk, with Humira having $21.2 billion at risk and competition related to the cancer drug Imbruvica resulting in $3.3 billion at risk. Yee also said that pharmas, in general, will be looking for deals as brands will lose exclusivity before 2028, with AbbVie being one of those out in the open. To get there, the Journal stated that AbbVie will focus on Skyrizi and Rinvoq as well as the blood cancer candidate epcoritamab, which it is developing with Genmab and candidates for Alzheimer’s and lung cancer. AbbVie is already starting to put down cash for deals. In January, it paid $30 million upfront to tap Immunome’s discovery platform, with the option for the partnership to discover 10 antibody-target pairs to go after tumors and has several other milestones and any potential payments attached. — Tyler Patchen Radiopharmaceuticals player Viewpoint Molecular Targeting has completed its journey to the New York Stock Exchange after completing its merger with a penny stock medtech player called Isoray. While the new company will keep the Isoray name, it’s focusing on what Viewpoint has been developing: cancer treatments that work by precisely delivering radiation to tumor sites. Its lead candidate is now in a Phase I imaging study for metastatic melanoma. Viewpoint CEO Thijs Spoor will be leading Isoray from now on, while outgoing Isoray CEO Lori Woods will become chairman of the board. Spoor, who previously led KBP Biosciences and AzurRx BioPharma, co-founded Viewpoint with Frances Johnson, the COO, and Michael Schultz, the CSO and an associate professor of radiology and free radical and radiation biology at the University of Iowa. — Amber Tong Sensei Biotherapeutics and the National Cancer Institute will be working together on a new immune checkpoint target. The Boston-based biotech announced on Monday that the deal with the NCI will be a cooperative R&D agreement for the development of Sensei’s candidate SNS-101, an active pH-selective VISTA-blocking antibody. The deal will have Sensei collaborating with the NCI’s immuno-oncology co-directors and conducting preclinical studies to examine the candidate in combination with other therapeutics. The financial or timeline aspects of the deal were not disclosed. According to Sensei, the goal of the deal is to investigate the candidate’s potential for tackling immune checkpoint resistance and its use as a combination therapy. The biotech also said that it plans to submit an IND for the candidate around April of this year and start trials soon after. “We believe this collaboration has the potential to increase the body of evidence that pH-selective VISTA inhibition can achieve a potentially differentiated efficacy and safety profile, expand the rationale for combining inhibition of VISTA with mechanisms beyond PD-1 inhibition, and help us build upon the current clinical development plan for SNS-101,” said Sensei CSO Edward van der Horst, in a release . — Tyler Patchen California-based biotech Slingshot Biosciences has managed to bring in more cash for its Series A. On Monday, Slingshot announced that it has closed on $11 million for funding its Series A. Slingshot received $23 million in Series A funding in 2021. Slingshot, a developer of synthetic cells for use in therapeutics and other applications, said it plans to use this latest injection of cash to speed up the commercialization of its technology and boost the capabilities of its platforms. “After successfully building our commercial footprint in controls and diagnostics last year, we are thrilled to accelerate our strategic efforts for biopharma applications, specifically cell and gene therapies,” said Jeffrey Kim, Slingshot’s CEO, in a statement . The funding round was co-led by ARCH Venture Partners and had participation from Anterra Captial. — Tyler Patchen
For more details,please visit the original website
The content of the article does not represent any opinions of Synapse and its affiliated companies. If there is any copyright infringement or error, please contact us, and we will deal with it within 24 hours.
Organizations
Indications
Targets
Drugs
Get started for free today!
Accelerate Strategic R&D decision making with Synapse, PatSnap’s AI-powered Connected Innovation Intelligence Platform Built for Life Sciences Professionals.
Start your data trial now!
Synapse data is also accessible to external entities via APIs or data packages. Leverages most recent intelligence information, enabling fullest potential.