 BioPharma Dealmakers
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| Deal watch: Phase III antibody targeting tumour pH acquired in Prometheus deal
July, 2011
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery
Prometheus Laboratories has acquired exclusive rights to commercialize the Phase III-stage clear-cell renal cell cancer (RCC) candidate girentuximab in the United States. Wilex will receive US$19 million upfront plus milestone payments and royalties on sales of girentuximab, if the drug is approved.
Girentuximab is a chimeric monoclonal carbonic anhydrase 9 (CA9)-specific antibody that was originally developed in the 1980s at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. The high expression of CA9 in solid tumours, and its absence from most healthy tissues, suggested that it could be a promising therapeutic target as well as a diagnostic marker for cancer.
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| Excitement mounts for first disease-modifying cystic fibrosis drugs
July, 2011
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery
"We have been in a bottleneck and now we have magnificent opportunities before us," declared Robert Beall — then Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA — in 1989, 1 day after a team announced that they had found the gene for cystic fibrosis. More than 20 years later, the same sentiment applies again. Vertex Pharmaceutical's VX-770 (ivacaftor), the most advanced disease-modifying cystic fibrosis drug to date, is at the point of regulatory submission.
New data presented in June 2011 at the European Cystic Fibrosis Conference (ECFC) in Hamburg, Germany, also gave the first detailed insight into the drug's Phase III efficacy in patients with cystic fibrosis. "I think it's a very significant watershed in cystic fibrosis drug research," said Stuart Elborn, head of the Queen's University Belfast's Centre for Infection and Immunity, Northern Ireland, and one of the STRIVE study's lead investigators. "The bar has been set pretty high now by VX-770 in terms of a treatment effect."
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| Companies vie for a cut of the gene-editing market
July, 2011
Nature Medicine
Researchers hoping to write the next chapter of biomedicine know that their progress will hinge largely on their ability to edit genes—cutting out unwanted DNA and manipulating the sequences they want to keep. Acolytes of gene-editing technology have recently been encouraged by early data about Sangamo BioSciences' new zinc finger nuclease–based therapies. In March, the California biotech reported preliminary phase 1 trial results showing that its HIV treatment, which uses editing to turn off the gene for the receptor on the cell membrane that the virus exploits, was safe and effective at improving people's T cell counts. Two months later, Sangamo scientists presented additional evidence at the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy meeting in Seattle demonstrating in mouse and cell models the technology's promise in a number of other diseases, including hemophilia, so-called 'bubble boy disease' and a form of acquired blindness.
Sangamo's success has fed a growing enthusiasm for genome engineering technologies. And now, a handful of biotechs with competing technologies and business models are vying to be the go-to company for gene-editing applications.
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| Biotechs follow big pharma lead back into academia
July, 2011
Nature Biotechnology
In March, biotech giant Gilead Biosciences of Foster City, California, announced a $40 million pact with Yale University of New Haven, to sequence tumors and identify potential therapeutic targets. In the same month, German firm Evotec forged a deal with Harvard of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in pancreatic beta cell regeneration and diabetes control. One month later, Regulus Therapeutics of San Diego entered an agreement with the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) to apply the company's RNA interference platform to the study of angiogenesis and Santa Clara, California–based Agilent announced it would provide funding and technology to UC Berkeley for a Synthetic Biology Institute. Until now, big pharma has been making the most noise in tapping back into academia for new discovery projects and intellectual property (IP). But anecdotal feedback to Nature Biotechnology suggests that biotech companies are increasingly joining the fray and the number of deals is mushrooming; some observers are even speculating that major academic institutions might become the focus of a collaboration 'bubble', particularly if corporations intensify efforts to exclusively tie up large swathes of research expertise.
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