June 24, 2020 - Fierce Biotech
Merck is willing to spend $500 million-plus on a deal that sees it gain access to a clutch of Yumanity’s neurodegenerative disease drugs.
The U.S. Big Pharma nabs exclusive rights for two preclinical assets targeting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobar dementia (FTLD). ALS causes a gradual deterioration and death of motor neurons, and will usually prove fatal.
There are currently four drugs approved by the U.S. FDA to treat ALS: Radicava, Rilutek, Tiglutik and Nuedexta, with Radicava the most recent with a 2017 FDA approval. But none of these drugs are curative and are limited in who they can help, and by how much.
June 24, 2020 - BioPharma Dive
La Jolla Pharmaceutical will pay $43 million cash to buy Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, its bid making La Jolla the third company in 2020 to attempt to take over the struggling antibiotic specialist.
La Jolla's bid was $4 million more than what Melinta Therapeutics offered a few weeks ago. Earlier this year, AcelRx started a bidding war with an all-shares offer that valued Tetraphase at $14 million, which it increased to $37 million after Melinta entered negotiations.
The offers are a far cry from Tetraphase's $1.8 billion valuation in 2015 as its drug Xerava was approaching readouts from Phase 3 trials. Xerava is now Tetraphase's only product, but it's struggled commercially. Physicians often reserve new antibiotics for more severe cases, fearing the bacterial resistance that has made older products less effective.
June 23, 2020 - Fierce Biotech
The medical community expressed caution when researchers in England said the widely used steroid dexamethasone could save the lives of seriously ill COVID-19 patients. Health experts demanded a full report to be convinced. Now, they have more data to consider, though not yet from a peer-reviewed journal.
According to results published on the preprint site
medRxiv
, use of 6mg dexamethasone for up to 10 days indeed led to a 35% reduction in death rate among patients on invasive mechanical ventilation after 28 days of treatment.
That said, the 29% death rate for these critically ill patients is still not low, though significantly lower than 40.7% with usual care.
June 23, 2020 - Fierce Biotech
As it continues with its small to medium-sized biotech deals, Gilead Sciences has put down $275 million for a 49.9% share in immuno-oncology biotech Pionyr Immunotherapeutics with the option to buy it out completely should it pass muster in early clinical tests.
This
buyout would cost
another $315 million, with around $1 billion in backloaded biobucks also on the cards.
For its cash, Gilead can tap Pionyr's tech, known as myeloid tuning, which is designed to rebalance the tumor microenvironment to favor immune-activating myeloid cells over immune-suppressing myeloid cells. This activity is believed to enhance anti-tumor efficacy, particularly in combination with checkpoint inhibition.
