February 14, 2020 - Fierce Biotech
A U.S. bankruptcy court has
given
groups interested in buying antibiotic biotech Melinta Therapeutics until March 2 to make an offer. The bidding process creates an opportunity for Melinta’s business to continue as a going concern despite its financial difficulties.
Melinta filed for bankruptcy late last year after months of escalating financial tensions. The New Jersey-based biotech has a small portfolio of approved products but, like its peers in the antibiotic space, has struggled to turn them into commercial successes. Sales over the first nine months of 2019 totalled $45.9 million, down 25% compared to the same period of 2018.
February 12, 2020 - Fierce Pharma
Teva's multibillion-dollar restructuring plan is finally coming to an end with the drugmaker running lighter to the tune of around 13,000 employees and 23 manufacturing sites. Now, Teva is charting a new path to growth––and hoping to ride migraine med Ajovy and Huntington's therapy Austedo to get there.
They're high hopes, too—and high stakes. Teva is
forecasting
2020 sales of Austedo and Ajovy at $650 million and $250 million, respectively, far outpacing Street consensus for both drugs. With revenue down 8% in 2019, that kind of outperformance will be crucial to a turnabout.
February 12, 2020 - Fierce Biotech
Ligand Pharmaceuticals has
acquired
a Roche-partnered program from Icagen. The deal comes a little more than one year after Roche and Icagen entered into a drug discovery pact aimed at neurological disorders.
Roche committed to up to $274 million in development and commercial milestones at the time of the December 2018 deal. In return, Icagen agreed to apply its platform to the discovery and early stage preclinical development of ion channel modulators. The alliance tasks Icagen with taking a drug up to lead optimization, at which point Roche will take over development.
February 11, 2020 - BioPharma Dive
Bayer is transferring a "large part" of its small molecule research unit in Berlin to Nuvisan, a Germany-based contract research and manufacturing organization, through a partnership announced Tuesday. According to the companies, the unit will serve as the base for a new center located on Bayer's research and development campus in Berlin. Bayer and Nuvisan said they'll work together in building the new center, with the unit transfer expected to complete in the middle of this year.
