Among the firms updating progress at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference (JPM) in San Francisco this week was Relay Therapeutics Inc., coming off a $30 million financing to boost its Dynamo platform and candidates.
GSK plc is plunking down $1 billion cash to take over Aiolos Bio Inc., with the promise of as much as $400 million in regulatory milestone payments along with tiered royalties. The deal gives London-based GSK asthma candidate AIO-001, a phase II-ready, long-acting antibody that binds to the human thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) ligand to inhibit TSLP signaling and relieve inflammation. GSK said AIO-001 could redefine the standard of care in asthma via the prospect of dosing every six months.
Merck & Co. Inc.’s deal to pay $23 in cash for Harpoon Therapeutics, bringing the equity value to about $680 million, further invigorated the delta-like ligand 3 (DLL3) development zone, where Amgen Inc. enjoys a lead with its prospect tarlatamab in the same class. DLL3 is an inhibitor ligand of the Notch pathway associated with tumorigenesis.
Allogene Therapeutics Inc.’s decision to preferentially pursue first-line treatment of large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL) with CAR T cemacabtagene ansegedleucel (cema-cel, previously known as ALLO-501A) met mixed reviews on Wall Street.
Umoja Biopharma Inc.’s gene delivery platform that combines a third-generation lentiviral vector gene approach with a novel T-cell targeting and activation surface complex brought Abbvie Inc. to the table for a pair of deals that could be worth as much as $1.44 billion.
With positive initial phase I/II data in hand from two trials, Dyne Therapeutics Inc. plans to report more findings and start enrolling registrational cohorts in both studies by the end of this year for DYNE-101 in myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) and a study called Deliver with DYNE-251 in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) who are amenable to exon 51 skipping.
Longboard Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s positive – and then some – phase Ib/IIa top-line data with 5-HT2C receptor superagonist bexicaserin (LP-352) in developmental and epileptic encephalopathies (DEEs) sparked Wall Street speculation about competitive odds as well as the shape of the firm’s upcoming phase III effort.
Pharma-biotech pairings continued apace in the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) space, with 2023 capped by Legochem Biosciences Inc. signing a $1.7 billion licensure deal with Johnson & Johnson arm Janssen Biotech Inc. for the former’s Trop2-directed compound, the second-biggest Korean technology transfer agreement.
The long, strange and nowhere-near-concluded trip taken by psychedelic drugs as a therapeutic modality continued in 2023, with regulators in the U.S. and Europe – and, perhaps in greater numbers, investors – warming to prospects in a space that once drew only laughter.
What Piper Sandler analyst Christopher Raymond called the “shocking” decision by Allovir Inc. to scrap development of posoleucel – which had advanced to three phase III trials – for all indications sent shares of the firm (NASDAQ:ALVR) in a tailspin, closing Dec. 22 at 76 cents, down $1.56, or 67%.
