By John Carroll The UK’s Vernalis has picked up a key endorsement from Novartis, a Big Pharma company with a growing reputation for picking winners in the pipeline. On the same day that Novartis wowed analysts with a big second quarter finish the Swiss company tapped Vernalis’s experimental tumor treatment–AUY922, which it is collaborating on …
By Maureen Martino Japan’s Astellas will pay up to $130 million to license a vaccine to prevent cytomegalovirus (CMV) reactivation in transplant recipients. The disease is typically dormant in those who are healthy but can cause illness in immunocompromised people, such as those who’ve received an organ transplant. A Phase III trial of TransVax in …
By Tracy Staton Novartis ($NVS) could soon be back on the acquisition trail. CEO Joe Jimenez (photo) told Swiss newspaper Aargauer Zeitung that the company’s first priority is paying down $22 billion in debt, but strong cash flow should take care of that fairly quickly. And then, Novartis’ appetite for deals is likely to sharpen, …
By John Carroll Reengineering a Big Pharma pipeline is no easy task, as Meeta Chatterjee, Merck’s head of global outlicensing and asset management, explains to Lisa Jarvis at Chemical & Engineering News. Unlike some of its rivals like GlaxoSmithKline, which chopped off entire therapeutic areas in order to gain a sharper focus on its most promising …
By John Carroll Japan’s Astellas has sold off a patent portfolio on diabetes drugs it obtained in the OSI Pharmaceuticals buyout, raising $609 million that it plans to use for a new round of dealmaking. Royalty Pharma gains valuable patents on DPP-IV inhibitors for Type 2 diabetes and Astellas gets a fresh injection of cash that …
By John Carroll In another sign of just how hot antibodies have become in the rheumatoid arthritis arena, Abbott is plunking down $85 million up front and promising up to $385 million more to partner with Germany’s Biotest on a mid-stage mAb with strong potential to emerge as a therapeutic for RA and psoriasis. The …
By John Carroll The veteran crew of cancer drug developers at MGI Pharma who went on to found Tesaro a little more than a year ago have rounded up a whopping $101 million B round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The cash gives the Boston-based biotech more cash to follow up on its late-stage …
By John Carroll There’s nothing new about partnering in drug development. It’s been going on for years. But the mantra on collaboration is becoming an article of faith these days, as a new analysis piece from Reuters helps illustrate. The trend story makes a few interesting points worth consideration. One of the hottest arenas for collaboration …
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