Deals & M&A

Torrent is recalibrating strategy with the addition of chronic therapies from Dr. Reddy’s while it folds up an unsustainable liquids business in US. The latter resulted in the company reporting a Q4 loss but a timely bonus share issue propped up investor sentiment.

Already owner of about 60% of the troubled antibiotic firm, Innoviva agrees to pay $2.20 per share for all outstanding stock in Entasis. Roche, KaliVir partner on oncolytic virus therapies.

Its first COVID-19 vaccine failed last year, but fueled by payments from the EU, Germany and GSK, CureVac is trying again with two further versions of its mRNA platform.

CEO Jan Schmidt-Brand tells Scrip that with another reliable long-term investor on the team alongside major shareholder Dievini, Heidelberg is well positioned to advance its amanitin-targeted antibody-drug conjugate candidates.

Detailed data presented at Digestive Disease Week show competitive efficacy in ulcerative colitis and a potential best-in-class safety profile for the S1P receptor modulator Pfizer acquired earlier this year. 

Vertex has acquired the full assets to a promising protease-based drug platform from Catalyst, broadening its R&D base once again.

Activist investor All Blue wants to mount a takeover, but the biotech’s board is holding out for encouraging pipeline news to help fight off the bid.

Some commercial-stage biotechnology companies blame the pandemic for their declining sales and continued losses. While an acquisition by a bigger company might once have been an aspiration, further fundraisings seem to be the more likely outcome.

Private Company Edition: The global accelerator has new commitments from HHS and the Wellcome Trust. Also, Apollo buys into Sofinnova Partners with an up to €1bn investment, Castle Creek raised $124.6m in private funding this year in lieu of an IPO and Remix closed a $70m series B round. 

Bayer is handing back rights to two early-stage off-the-shelf CAR-Ts to Atara, but the split could still be good news for the biotech company.

In the midst of another restructuring, the company is transitioning from a drug discovery company to a more externally focused R&D model; CEO Jackie Fouse talked to Scrip about the changes at Agios.

While Orphazyme's attempts to get approval for arimoclomol failed miserably, new owner KemPharm is confident it can get the oral heat shock protein amplifier across the regulatory finishing line for Niemann-Pick disease type C.