Deals & M&A

The German biotech announced in March that it was terminating the early-stage oncology R&D projects that came with its purchase of Constellation last year and Novartis has snapped up one of them.

Deal Snapshot: Akeso has already sought to secure FDA approval for its PD-1 inhibitor, but the agency has shown reluctance to approve drugs based on China-only data.

Janssen has dropped out of the running to acquire Irish biotech Horizon, leaving Sanofi and Amgen to vie over the potential megadeal, with some observers identifying the former as the better fit.

After failure to close of a potential $177m buyout by EW Pharma, TherapeuticsMD will resolve its debt by selling its three-product women’s health portfolio to Mayne.

Roivant will form a new "vant" company to develop and commercialize Pfizer's TL1A inhibitor for ulcerative colitis.

Transactions involving Biocon/Zentiva, CrystalGenomics/PanGen, Umoja/IASO, Marinus/Tenacia, Ono/Captor and Daewoong/HitGen plus deals in brief.

Zydus, along with Bristol Myers Squibb and generics companies like Mylan, Cipla and Dr. Reddy’s, has been named in an antitrust suit involving BMS’ blockbuster drug Revlimid. For now, it expects revenues from the generic to stretch beyond Q4 FY’23. Meanwhile, a recent acquisition of Watson, which made APIs for the Teva group, should shore up declining API revenues

Deal Snapshot: German firm gets license rights to Ryvu’s STING agonist portfolio in addition to collaborating on immunomodulators. Ryvu adds need cash via upfront and equity payments from BioNTech.

The Irish firm revealed it was in early conversations with Amgen, J&J and Sanofi regarding a possible takeover, with some experts touting the potential for a deal far surpassing the $20bn mark.

Full-Life’s acquisition of Focus-X came after two other Chinese biotechs leaped into the fray for a leading position in China’s nascent radionuclide therapy market.

The gene therapy firm announced that Bristol terminated a collaboration started in 2015. Nona follows its recent alliance with Moderna with a second collaboration, this time with Dragonfly.

The UK major has been building its cell therapy portfolio for about three years internally, oncology R&D chief Susan Galbraith tells Scrip, and the purchase of Neogene and its TCR-Ts targeting neoantigens in solid cancers is a logical step.