Deal-Making Archives - Page 48 of 59 - BioProcess InternationalBioProcess International

Merck accessing cancer vaccine tech through $300m acquisition

Merck & Co. will acquire Immune Design for $300 million, adding cancer immunization and adjuvant systems technologies to its portfolio. The deal, expected to close early in the second quarter of 2019, sees Merck & Co. (known as MSD outside of North America) acquire late-stage Californian immunotherapy firm Immune Design for $5.85 (€5.15) per share in cash, totaling around $300 million. “Our primary interest to acquire Immune Design is related to their unique portfolio of approaches to cancer immunization and…

From Sartorius to VC, Dynamk’s new MD talks life science investment

by Dan Stanton

AI, regenerative medicine enabling technologies, and clinical diagnostics are major investment opportunities, says life science executive Reinhard Vogt who has joined Dynamk Capital. Reinhard Vogt served as an executive at Sartorius AG for over 35 years. During his tenure, he was responsible for the strategic development of the firm’s Bioprocess Division that grew from around $30 Million to around $1.2 billion today, reached through a combination of strong organic growth and a strong focus on M&A and the integration of…

AGC Bio ‘CHOsen’ to make Interleukin-15 inhibitor for Serono spin-off

by Dan Stanton

CDMO AGC Biologics will develop the process and manufacture Calypso’s CALY-002, a humanized monoclonal antibody manufactured in a CHO cell line, from its site in Denmark. Calypso Biotech, a spin-off from Merck Serono, has selected contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) AGC Biologics for the process development and cGMP production of its lead candidate CALY-002. The work will be undertaken at AGC Bio’s site in Copenhagen, Denmark. Financials of the deal have not been divulged, but Calypso’s CEO Alain Vicari…

‘Impressive roster of participants’ brings $42m to PureTech affiliate

by BPI Staff

Vor Biopharma, founded by PureTech, has raised $42 million to support its hematopoietic stem cell (HSC)-based candidate through Series A financing round. Vor Biopharma, co-founded by biopharma firm PureTech, will use the $42 million (€37 million) to advance its lead HSC-based preclinical candidate for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and to further build its pipeline to treat hematologic malignancies. According to Jefferies equity analyst Peter Welford, the Series A financing round included an “impressive roster of participants,’ led…

Big Pharma and CAR-T: Testing the water or in at the deep end?

by Dan Stanton

Following Novartis and Gilead’s success, others are “scrambling to build up their T-Cell capabilities,” say venture capitalists. We look at where Big Pharma stands in this blossoming sector. Big Pharma firms will be looking at strategies to enter the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell space, if they have not already, spurred on by the approvals in 2017 of Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) and Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) . This was the view of commentators and analysts at Phacilitate in Miami, Florida last month. Anna…

Dual sourcing drives global network as WuXi inks Amicus deal

by Dan Stanton

WuXi Biologics will harness its growing global network to supply the commercial drug substance and product for Amicus Therapeutics’ Pompe biologic ATB200. Amicus Therapeutics is developing a therapy consisting of recombinant human acid alpha-glucosidase (rhGAA) enzyme with an optimized carbohydrate structure, administered with a small molecule pharmacological chaperone. The product, ATB200, will be made by contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) WuXi Biologics. The firm, which has been working with Amicus to scale-up the product over the past few years,…

Samsung Bioepis inks biosimilar deals to enter China

by Dan Stanton

Samsung Bioepis has teamed with C-Bridge Capital to bring its third-wave biosimilars to the Chinese market. C-Bridge will establish a new company, AffaMed Therapeutics, under terms of the deal, and will license multiple biosimilar candidates from Samsung Bioepis to commercialize in China. These include the third-wave biosimilar candidates SB11 and SB12 – versions of Roche/Novartis’ Lucentis (ranibizumab) and Alexion’s Soliris (eculizumab) – and SB3, a biosimilar of Roche’s Herceptin (trastuzumab). The deal comes weeks after a partnership deal with 3SBio…

Takeda post-Shire could divest 25% of its business

by Dan Stanton

Having acquired Shire last month, Takeda is planning to divest non-core assets, representing up to 25% of its business. Takeda closed the $62 billion (€55 billion) acquisition of Shire on January 8th and according to Takeda CFO Costa Saroukos, the “integration of the two companies is now progressing as planned.” Shire brings Takeda greater geography and scale, creating a company with around 35 manufacturing sites, but on a call last week to discuss third quarter FY2018 results, up to a…

GSK boosts oncology pipeline through Merck and Tesaro deals

by Dan Stanton

The acquisition of Tesaro and a codevelopment deal with Merck KGaA has helped double the size of GlaxoSmithKline’s clinical oncology pipeline from eight to 16. Earlier this week, GSK formed an alliance with Germany’s Merck to codevelop and commercialize a bifunctional fusion protein immunotherapy intended to treat multiple cancers. Merck has received an upfront payment of €300 million ($340 million) from GSK and could receive a further €500 million in development milestone payments. The candidate, M7824 (proposed International Nonproprietary Name…

Janssen enters $440m retinal gene therapy partnership

by BPI Staff

J&J has licensed a clinical stage inherited retinal disease portfolio from MeiraGTx in a deal that could be worth $440 million (€385 million). Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen division has paid $100 million upfront to MeiraGTx, a London-UK based clinical stage company, to access and codevelop the firm’s gene therapy programs. Development and sales milestones for MeiraGTx’s could net the firm a further $340 million. Under terms of the deal, the two firms aim to develop, manufacture and commercialize several candidates…