Deals & M&A

Plus deals involving Shionogi/ Grünenthal, CR Biopharma/ImmVira, Elevation Oncology/CSPC, Everest Medicines/TTY Biopharm and Dr. Reddy’s/Slayback

Less than two year after going public by a SPAC merger, Gemini will reverse merge with hematology-focused Disc. Bristol Myers Squibb and GentiBio will join forces on Treg development for inflammatory bowel disorders.

The major will use the biotech’s brain cell-focused platform technology to discover new targets for Alzheimer’s disease.

Faced with a scarily short cash runway and an ongoing expensive mid-stage study of an allogeneic cell therapy for the treatment of delayed-union bone fractures, Bone Therapeutics has found a saviour in France's Medsenic.

The UK major has teamed up with the US biotech to develop the latter’s HER-2 targeted antibody-drug conjugate, a couple of years after the approval of Blenrep, in what is becoming an increasingly competitive space.

Pfizer has reached a deal to buy Global Blood Therapeutics for $5.4bn, gaining the sickle cell therapy Oxbryta and building on efforts to reach underserved patient groups.

Analysts are scratching their heads over what direction the Belgian biotech will take in the coming months and years, with all eyes on an R&D day in October.

Experts shared views at a recent conference in Seoul on how the Korean biopharma industry has evolved and what needs to be done to move forward in the next 10 years. Policy efficiency and family ownership in the sector came in for particular scrutiny, with some calling for sweeping changes. 

The antibody-drug conjugate market is emerging as the next battleground for intense competition in China, with global partnerships becoming essential to win, as evidenced by a major new alliance between Innovent and Sanofi.

Amgen is acquiring a pipeline-in-a-pill with ChemoCentryx’s Tavneos, currently approved for ANCA-associated vasculitis, at a time when the company’s existing portfolio is struggling to maintain sales growth.

Just over a month after raising $97m in a series B round, Oxford University spinout MiroBio and its immune checkpoint agonists have been snapped up by Gilead Sciences. 

The Japanese firm has expanded its partnership with AbbVie into the neurology space, where it hopes to use its unique platform technology to develop up to three drug candidates targeting ‘challenging’ G protein-coupled receptor targets.