Pharma Investment Roundup 22-Apr-2022

Terran Biosciences inks licensing deal with Sanofi

21-Apr-2022

Terran Biosciences announced a deal with French pharma giant Sanofi to develop two of its late-stage CNS assets. Terran specializes in the development of treatments for neurological and psychiatric disease, making them ideal for the role. The drugs in question have already generated four Investigational New Drug applications as well as 104 clinical studies involving more than 15,000 subjects across many indications. Financial terms for the deal were not disclosed, although the usual upfront, milestone-associated and royalty payments are expected. Terran expressed their gratitude towards Sanofi entrusting them with exclusive worldwide rights for the development and commercialization of the novel treatments, as expressed by Terran CEO, Dr. Sam Clark:

“We are grateful to the Sanofi team for entrusting us to continue the development of these late-stage therapeutics, which we believe have the potential to transform the paradigm in neuropsychiatry”

Octant raises $80m in Series B funding and announces partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb

21-Apr-2022

Octant recently announced an $80m Series B funding round led by Catalio Capital Management amidst news of other partnerships and people appointments. Octant is a data-driven therapeutics company that seeks to specialize in precision treatments for complex diseases, particularly through the field of programmable biology and chemistry. The new round of financing raises Octant’s total funding to $115m so far; the company states that the new funds will be used to advance proprietary drug discovery technologies as well as its overall platform. Conjointly, the company will seek to employ data from genetics and biochemical pathways in human cells to map these directly onto drug candidates. Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) also participated in the funding, with Octant subsequently announcing a partnership with BMS. As part of the partnership, Octant will use its Deep Mutational Scanning technologies to investigate inflammatory pathways. The company also announced the appointment of Rick Artis as its Chief Scientific Officer, in addition to the appointment of Feng Zhang to their Scientific Advisory Board. George Petrocheilos, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Catalio Capital Management – the lead investor, was upbeat about Octant’s future potential:

“Octant is on an exciting growth trajectory, led by a passionate management team with a unique understanding of how to translate world-class research into an entirely new approach to addressing complicated diseases. Catalio is proud to help accelerate Octant’s growth and support its mission to discover and develop innovative and impactful therapeutics for patients around the world.” 

VantAI Continues Deal PROTAC Spree with Boehringer Ingelheim

20-Apr-2022

VantAI, a company focused on advancing induced proximity treatments with the use of AI, announced a new partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim earlier this week. Working together, the two companies will seek solutions for previously undruggable targets using one protein degrader combined with multiple E3 ligases. The work will leverage VantAI’s geometric deep learning to design new molecules for each E3 programme in a bid to enhance potency and specificity. Boehringer will retain worldwide exclusive license to the products developed for the first target in the partnership, while VantAI will receive upfront, milestone and royalty payments. This marks VantAI’s second new partnership in April 2022 – Dr Zachary Carpenter, CEO of VantAI, highlighted the significance of the new partnership in a forward-looking statement:

“We’re extremely excited to partner with Boehringer Ingelheim in the induced proximity space, particularly on ‘undruggable’ disease targets, where new approaches are needed to overcome long-standing hurdles. BI’s deep early discovery experience and VantAI’s unique geometric deep learning technology are well poised in combination to unlock novel solutions with significant advantages for patients”

AmerisourceBergen goes on Blockchain partnership with Chronicled

21-Apr-2022

AmerisourceBergen made public its plans to work with Chronicled, the administrator of the MediLedger Network. The Network aims to be an open ledger for the entire life sciences supply chain, using the power of distributed blockchain technology. The partnership will be particularly focused on enhancing pharmaceutical chargeback accuracy to reduce chargeback rejection rates, in addition to improving supply connections between suppliers and customers. AmerisourceBergen has already worked closely with Chronicled in the design and trialing of the technology, highlighting the promise of blockchains in improving overall traceability and accountability in the highly fragmented pharmaceutical supply chain landscape. MediLedger aims to simplify chargeback processes by acting as a single source for group purchasing organization membership, customer identifier data and contract pricing. Dina Barton, VP for Contracts & Chargebacks at AmerisourceBergen, highlighted the importance of streamlining these processes:

“At AmerisourceBergen, it’s our responsibility to develop and leverage innovative solutions that create seamless and efficient experiences for our customers and the patients they serve every day. This wouldn’t be possible without trusted partnerships across the supply chain. Being a part of the MediLedger Network and deploying this type of blockchain technology is a crucial step forward in AmerisourceBergen’s ongoing digital transformation journey” 

Regeneron acquires Checkmate and its IO pipeline 

19-Apr-2022

Regeneron recently proposed a $250m all-cash acquisition of Checkmate Pharmaceuticals in a bid to integrate the latter’s promising immuno-oncology portfolio. The lead candidate for Checkmate is vidutolimod, a CpG-A oligodeoxynucleotide Toll-like receptor 9 vectored in a virus-like particle. Vidutolimod is thought to induce and expand anti-tumor T cells to induce tumour regression in patients who have progressed despite previous PD-1 checkpoint inhibition therapy. Regeneron CEO Leonard Schleifer also expressed interest in investigating combination therapies of vidutolimod with other antibody-based oncology treatments. Vidutolimod presents promise for the growing innate immune activator field, with Art Krieg, Checkmate’s Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, expressing confidence in the product’s capabilities:

“We believe that the data we have generated with vidutolimod positions Checkmate at the forefront of the innate immune activator field. It is our hope that Regeneron’s resources and expertise will help accelerate the development of vidutolimod and realization of the full potential of our virus-like particle (VLP) platform for immunotherapy.”

Regeneron forms multiple myeloma partnership with SpringWorks

19-Apr-2022

Continuing the deals for Regeneron, SpringWorks also announced a new agreement to investigate nirogacestat in combination with REGN5458 in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. Nirogacestat, SpringWorks’ investigational gamma secretase inhibitor, is intended to prevent the cleavage and shedding of B-Cell Maturation Agent (BCMA) from myeloma cells and therefore thought to enhance the potency of therapies such as REGN548, a CD3 bispecific antibody. Regeneron will receive a clinical supply of Nirogacestat and retain responsibility for clinical development and costs associated with the studies. SpringWorks already has several established partnerships working on investigating the BCMA effects of nirogacestat, and expressed hope at the possible positive effects of the combination in a statement by Saqib Islam, Chief Executive Officer:

“We are delighted to enter into our eighth BCMA clinical collaboration as we continue to advance nirogacestat as a potentially best-in-class cornerstone of BCMA-directed therapies. Our goal is to improve clinical outcomes for patients with multiple myeloma and we look forward to working with Regeneron to evaluate nirogacestat in combination with REGN5458.”

Nick Zoukas, Former Editor, PharmaFEATURES