Fresh off ending one antifibrosis program in December, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH (BI) is spinning up an expansive new effort in the area this month, promising Singapore-based Enleofen Bio Pte. Ltd. potential payouts of more than $1 billion per product from a preclinical interleukin-11 platform.
Gennbio Co. Ltd. has signed an agreement with fellow Korean biotech Genexine Inc. to in-license two immunosuppressant drug candidates called GX-P1 (PD-L1 hyfc) and BSF-110 (PD-L1-hyFc-1L10m).
HONG KONG – Global pharmaceutical company Mundipharma Pte Ltd. is gaining exclusive commercialization rights in Taiwan and Hong Kong to four biosimilar candidates from South Korean biopharma Samsung Bioepis Co. Ltd. targeting immunology and oncology.
San Diego-based Atyr Pharma Inc. CEO Sanjay Shukla told BioWorld that the company plans to move into a registrational trial with lead candidate ATYR-1923 in pulmonary sarcoidosis (PS) if data from the ongoing phase Ib/IIa trial, due later this year, turn out positive. Releasing patients from steroid burdens “would be a real game-changer,” he said, noting that people with PS take as much as 25 mg of prednisone per day to control their coughs and shortness of breath.
In a deal with just $50 million up front but the potential to reach $2.5 billion, Tokyo’s Taiho Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. and Astex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, U.K., are joining Merck & Co. Inc. in an exclusive worldwide research collaboration and license agreement to develop small-molecule inhibitors against several cancer targets, including the KRAS oncogene.
BEIJING – Yisheng Biopharma Co. Ltd., of Beijing, said it has inked a pact with U.S. biotech Tavotek Biotherapeutics, of Ambler, Pa., to co-develop a combination therapy with Yisheng’s YS-ON-001/002 and Tavotek’s Tavo-301/303 the companies hope could prove a more efficacious cancer treatment than the popular anti-PD-1/PD-L1 monotherapies. YS-ON-001 and YS-ON-002 are potent agonists of TLR3, MDA5 and RIG-I pathways. Meanwhile, Tavo-301/303 is a series of novel multispecific antibody-based immuno-oncology assets.
Astellas Pharma Inc.’s early 2018 buyout of Universal Cells Inc. (UC) may have laid the groundwork for longer-range steps in allogeneic CAR T-cell therapy, but Xyphos Biosciences Inc. CEO James Knighton told BioWorld Asia that the buyout of his firm provides the Tokyo-based giant for now with “an incredibly elegant solution that has tremendous potential.”
BEIJING – U.S. biotech Tracon Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, has in-licensed from Chinese drugmakers 3D Medicines (Beijing) Co. Ltd. and Jiangsu Alphamab Biopharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. the rights to develop envafolimab, a subcutaneous PD-L1 antibody, to treat soft tissue sarcoma in North America.
Turnstone Biologics Inc. has found a major backer for its preclinical vaccinia-based oncolytic virus platform for cancer immunotherapy. Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. is paying $120 million in up-front, near-term milestones and equity investment and could pay $900 million more in development, regulatory and commercial milestones to enter a strategic alliance with the New-York-based firm.
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