Calypso Biotech SA

Novartis is wagering more than $3 billion that a startup it helped launch six years ago has developed a better blood thinner than whats now available.The Swiss drugmaker on Tuesday announced a deal to acquire Anthos Therapeutics, a Boston-based startup it formed with Blackstone Life Sciences in 2019. Novartis will pay $925 million upfront, and could pay up to $2.15 billion more should the drug at the center of the deal hit certain regulatory and sales milestones. The deal should close in the first half of 2025.Through the acquisition, Novartis will regain a blood-thinning drug, called abelacimab, thats currently in late-stage testing. Novartis originally discovered the compound, but in 2019 licensed it to Anthos, a startup Blackstone Life Sciences launched with $250 million. That deal gave Novartis a minority stake in Anthos, which went on to advance the drug into Phase 3 testing.Abelacimab is a new type of anticoagulant called a Factor XI inhibitor. Its designed to be safer than existing blood thinners like Xarelto and Eliquis, which earn their makers billions of dollars in sales each year. But they also carry bleeding risks that can make treatment challenging. Abelacimab, as well as other Factor XI blockers in development by Bristol Myers Squibb and Regeneron, are thought to stop clotting while sidestepping some of those issues.Testing has yielded inconsistent results, though. Bayer dialed back development of a Factor XI drug after it failed a Phase 3 trial in 2023. Bristol Myers candidate was moved into late-stage trials despite mixed findings in earlier testing. Factor XI blockers have not shown a meaningfully better clinical profile to date than Eliquis or Xarelto in head-to-head Phase 3 trials, RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams wrote in December.Generic versions of Eliquis could arrive in 2026, too, raising the commercial bar for alternative therapies to succeed.Still, Anthos acquisition offers another validation for the Factor XI mechanism and its large market potential in the anticoagulant space, Abrahams wrote after the deals announcement Tuesday.Anthos showed a glimpse of that potential in November 2023, when it presented results showing abelacimab was safer than Xarelto in a large, mid-stage trial. Three late-stage studies are ongoing in people at risk of serious clots who have either atrial fibrillation or cancer-associated blood clotting. Anthos has said study results could come next year.We are proud that this medicine originated at Novartis and have been impressed with the Anthos Therapeutics teams expertise and dedication and with the great progress they have made on the program, said David Soergel, head of Novartis cardiovascular, renal and metabolism development unit, in a statement. Now is the right time to bring abelacimab back into the Novartis CRM pipeline.The acquisition is Novartis first of 2025. It adds to a series of startup buyouts inked by Novartis in recent years, including of DTx Pharma, Mariana Oncology, Calypso Biotech and IFM Due. Beyond Novartis, industry dealmaking of late has focused more heavily on privately held companies. '

Pictured: San Francisco with text overlay/Taylor Tieden for BioSpace The first major events of the biotech calendar, the J.P Morgan Healthcare Conference and co-located San Francisco healthcare meetings, have come and gone. And while Novartis is reportedly pulling back from buying cardiovascular biotech Cytokinetics, several pharma companies did successfully purchase smaller biotechs and their assets. With many in the biopharma industry having returned home—or stuck en route due to weather-related events—BioSpace recaps the significant deals secured in biotech last week. 1. Johnson & Johnson Buys Ambrx for $2 Billion With the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) market red hot, J&J kicked off JPM with big news, announcing the purchase of Ambrx. The $2 billion price tag includes an ADC currently in Phase I/II trials for advanced prostate cancer. This is not the first ADC-focused biotech with which J&J has done business. In February 2022, it paid $40 million upfront in a research and licensing deal with Mersana Therapeutics, potentially worth $1 billion. In December 2023, J&J bought the licensing rights for LegoChem Bioscience’s ADC for $100 million upfront and $1.7 billion in possible milestone payments. 2. Merck to Purchase Cancer Biotech Harpoon for $680 Million Already heavily entrenched in cancer, Merck announced it would buy cancer drug developer Harpoon Therapeutics for an estimated $680 million. The deal is designed to serve as a boost to Merck’s immunotherapy and oncology pipeline. Harpoon has developed T-cell engager drugs and antibodies to kill cancer cells. One candidate, HPN328, is currently in Phase I/II trials for patients with advanced cancers associated with the expression of DLL3. 3. GSK Pumps $1 Billion into Its Asthma Pipeline GSK will acquire Aiolos Bio for $1 billion upfront and potentially another $400 million in regulatory milestones. The biotech’s main asset is AIO-001, a monoclonal antibody targeting the thymic stromal lymphopoietin cytokine, a “validated driver of inflammation," according to the company's website. The treatment, being developed for asthma, may only need to be taken twice a year. 4 and 5. Alphabet’s Isomorphic Labs Secures Two Partners Novartis and Eli Lilly each partnered with Alphabet’s Isomorphic Labs to use its artificial intelligence platform to develop small molecule-based drugs. The platform was developed with Google’s DeepMind. The Lilly deal will give Isomorphic $45 million upfront and $1.7 billion in performance-based milestones and tiered royalties. Novartis’s contract will see Isomorphic receive $37.5 million upfront and $1.2 billion in milestones and royalties. 6 and 7. Novartis Strikes Deals Targeting Gastrointestinal, Cardio Conditions Novartis also announced last week the acquisition of Dutch outfit and Merck Serono spinout Calypso Biotech for $250 million upfront, with another $175 million for Calypso's taking if certain milestones are hit. Calypso's lead asset, CALY-002, targets the IL-15 cytokine and has the potential to treat several gastrointestinal conditions. Novartis additionally inked license and collaboration agreements with China-based biotech Argo for two RNA interface candidates meant to go after cardiovascular diseases. Argo could see $4.165 billion plus royalties under the terms of the agreement. Tyler Patchen is a staff writer at BioSpace. You can reach him at tyler.patchen@biospace.com. Follow him on LinkedIn.

GSK’s acquisition will give the company access to Aiolos’ AIO-001, a monoclonal antibody entering Phase II trials for the treatment of asthma in adults. Image credit: Shutterstock/William Barton. GSK has agreed to acquire the asthma drug specialist Aiolos Bio for a deal worth up to $1.4bn, as it aims to strengthen its respiratory and inflammatory asset pipeline. GSK will pay $1bn upfront to acquire the Anglo-American biopharma, with a further $400m on the line in success-based regulatory milestones, according to a 9 January press release. The companies did not reveal when the deal is expected to close. GSK’s acquisition will give the company access to Aiolos’ AIO-001, a monoclonal antibody that is ready to start Phase II trials for the treatment of asthma in adults. The asset targets thymic stromal lymphopoietin which, according to the companies, is a driver of inflammation in diseases such as asthma. GSK will also assess the drug’s potential use in the treatment of chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps. AIO-001 has the potential to be administered every six months – far less frequently than current treatments used to manage symptoms of asthma. US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved Xolair (omalizumab) developed by Novartis , for example, is administered every two to four weeks. AstraZeneca ’s Tezspire (tezepelumab-ekko), FDA-approved for severe asthma in adults, is administered monthly. GSK’s chief scientific officer Tim Wood said AIO-001 could expand the reach of the company’s respiratory biologics portfolio, highlighting “the 40% of severe asthma patients with low T2 inflammation where treatment options are still needed”. In October 2023, Aiolos launched in a $245m Series A round . The company licensed AIO-001 from Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals for use outside of Greater China. The Chinese pharma company is also in line for milestone and royalty-based payments from GSK. GSK is the fourth big pharma to make moves amid the J P Morgan Healthcare Conference currently being held in San Francisco, US. Johnson & Johnson spent $2bn to acquire Ambrx , boosting its oncology portfolio. MSD also strengthened its cancer assets by acquiring T-cell engager specialist Harpoon Therapeutics for $680m . Novartis, having already spent $250m to acquire Calypso Biotech, is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Cytokinetics for $10bn, according to Reuters.