June 11, 2020 - Fierce Pharma
AstraZeneca made waves last week when it signed a massive $750 million deal to ramp production of a University of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine up to 2 billion doses per year. Now, as part of a Trump administration effort to get shots into U.S. hands as soon as possible, AstraZeneca has agreed to another major manufacturing tie-up.
AstraZeneca and Emergent BioSolutions have
inked
an $87 million deal to manufacture doses of the University of Oxford's adenovirus-based COVID-19 shot for U.S. supply, the companies said Thursday.
The manufacturing accord is part of the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed initiative to develop and rapidly scale production of targeted vaccines before the end of 2020.
June 11, 2020 - STAT News
Scientists stress that just because someone has recovered from Covid-19 and produced antibodies to the coronavirus does not mean they are protected from contracting it a second time. No one’s yet proven that.
That, then, leaves open the question: What does immunity look like?
Experts anticipate an initial coronavirus infection will lend people some level of immunity for some amount of time. But they still don’t know what potpourri of antibodies, cells, and other markers in a person’s blood will signify that protection. And determining those “correlates of protection” is crucial both so individuals can know if they are again at risk, and so researchers can understand how well potential vaccines work, how long they last, and how to accelerate their development.
June 11, 2020 - Fierce Biotech
Novo Nordisk plunked down $725 million for France’s Corvidia Therapeutics and its lead program, an anti-IL-6 antibody for the treatment of heart disease related to kidney disease. The Danish drugmaker aims to start a phase 3 study for the drug in 2021 and, if all goes well, Corvidia’s shareholders could ultimately cash out $2.1 billion.
The antibody, ziltikevimab, is in a phase 2b dose-finding trial to reduce the risk of heart problems in patients with chronic kidney disease who also have atherosclerosis, the buildup of fats, cholesterol and other substances in the artery walls. Having led six cardiovascular outcomes trials for its own medicines, like Victoza and Ozempic, which were both were developed for diabetes, Novo is prepared to move its new antibody into phase 3.
June 10, 2020 - Fierce Biotech
AbbVie is set to pay Genmab $750 million upfront for a stake in a pipeline of anti-cancer bispecifics led by epcoritamab. The
deal
, which features up to $3.2 billion in milestones, positions AbbVie to race Regeneron to market with a bispecific antibody that could compete with CAR-T therapies.
Genmab has consistently targeted a mid-2020 agreement covering the rights to CD3xCD20 bispecific antibody epcoritamab, telling investors that it aimed to book U.S. sales, retain a 50% split and secure promotion rights through a deal with a “blue-chip” partner. As recently as this month, Genmab CEO Jan van de Winkel said multiple parties were still in the running.
Now, AbbVie has landed rights to epcoritamab by agreeing to Genmab’s redlines for the deal, putting up $750 million upfront and committing to a partnership that extends far beyond epcoritamab.