Deals, Development and Manufacturing

The new business unit, as well as a new leadership team formed by AbbVie, will be effective upon closing of the acquisition in the first quarter of 2020.

Under the agreement, Almirall will leverage WuXi Biologics’ proprietary WuXiBody platform to develop bispecific antibodies for dermatological diseases.

Roche will apply ProBioGen’s proprietary GlymaxX technology to boost the antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity activity of antibodies.

The joint venture will develop next-generation cell and gene therapies incorporating Affimer proteins.

The acquisition expands Charles River’s scientific capabilities in cell therapy development.

Through the acquisition, Merck will gain access to ArQule’s lead investigational candidate, ARQ 531, a novel, oral Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor currently in a Phase II dose expansion study for the treatment of B-cell malignancies.

The acquisition boosts Sanofi’s pipeline of immuno-oncology product candidates with a lead candidate in development for treating solid-tumor-type cancers.

Under the restructuring, Sanofi will gain sole global rights to Kevzara (sarilumab) and sole ex-US rights to Praluent (alirocumab), while Regeneron will gain sole US rights to Praluent.

GE Healthcare Life Sciences and Guangzhou Development District Investment Promotion Bureau have signed an agreement to jointly establish a training center for biopharmaceutical professionals.

BioMed X has announced the successful completion of its first joint research project in the fields of COPD and IPF that it had undertaken with Boehringer Ingelheim.

CPI has partnered with ImmunoBiology (ImmBio) for the development of a heat-stabilized formulation of a mutli-antigen vaccine candidate against Pneumococcal diseases.

Iontas has entered into a collaboration agreement with Adaptate Biotherapeutics for the generation and optimization of antibodies for novel immune-oncology targets.

Biopharma company, Zelluna Immunotherapy, and clinical stage biotech, Glycostem Therapeutics, have entered into a partnership focused on the development and manufacture of allogeneic T-cell receptor guided Natural Killer cell therapies for the treatment of cancer.

The agreement paves the way for GSK’s specialty HIV company, ViiV Healthcare, to develop a broadly neutralizing antibody, N6LS, for HIV treatment and prevention.

The companies have entered into a clinical and commercial agreement to use MaxCyte’s ExPERT platform to enable development of up to five of Vor’s engineered cell therapies.

Lonza and Cryoport have partnered up to strengthen Lonza’s ‘vein-to-vein’ delivery network by removing supply chain hurdles faced by developers of personalized therapeutics.

GE Healthcare Life Sciences has announced it will be working closely with Pharmadule Morimatsu to expand its KUBio “factory in a box” so that biopharma manufacturers will be able to quickly scale up vaccines, viral vector-based therapies, and other novel modalities.

The new service will assist pharmaceutical companies with quality control and analytical requirements.

The companies will work to discover and develop therapies for the treatment of liver-related cardio-metabolic diseases using Dicerna’s proprietary GalXC RNAi platform technology.

Alkermes plans to advance its investigational new drug-enabling capabilities for lead preclinical assets in the Rodin development candidate portfolio.

If successful, the acquisition will boost Recipharm’s global position in the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) market.

Through the agreement, Roche will gain full rights to the company’s portfolio of molecules for fibrotic diseases, most notably PRM-151, Promedior’s lead product candidate.

With the gene-editing technology, Evotec will have the ability to accelerate research and enable the testing and development of new drugs.

Norwegian clinical-stage immunoncology company, Lytix Biopharma, has entered into a clinical collaboration with US-based Iovance Biotherapeutics.

A clinical-stage company that was spun out of the VUB university in Belgium, eTheRNA immunotherapies, has revealed it will be participating in an EU research project aimed at developing off-the-shelf mRNA nanomedicines.