Former Allergan exec heads to Revance as it challenges Botox; Mark Pruzanski surrounds himself with more teammates – Endpoints News

→ Re­vance feels like it has a com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage over Ab­b­Vie’s block­buster Botox with on­ly bian­nu­al in­jec­tions of its fresh­ly ap­proved Daxxi­fy, as op­posed to the in­jec­tions every three or four months that Botox re­quires. But you come at the king, you best not miss, and as Daxxi­fy hits the mar­ket, Re­vance has now tapped David Hol­lan­der as CMO. Hol­lan­der was pre­vi­ous­ly the chief R&D of­fi­cer at Aerie Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, which was sold to Al­con a cou­ple months ago in a $770 mil­lion deal, and he has fa­mil­iar­i­ty with the Botox de­vel­op­er through his 10 years at Al­ler­gan. From 2011-16, he was Al­ler­gan’s VP, glob­al ther­a­peu­tic area head in clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment for an­te­ri­or seg­ment and con­sumer eye care. The Nashville biotech is al­so test­ing Dax­i­bot­u­linum­tox­i­nA in pa­tients with cer­vi­cal dys­to­nia, among oth­er con­di­tions.
→ Now un­der the lead­er­ship of ex-In­ter­cept CEO Mark Pruzan­s­ki and part of this year’s End­points 11 class, obe­si­ty start­up Ver­sa­nis Bio has wel­comed Ken­neth At­tie as CMO and Aditya Venu­gopal as SVP, cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment and strate­gic plan­ning. At­tie was one of the staffers left out in the cold at Imara as it whit­tled down to a six-per­son com­pa­ny in April but turned around its for­tunes by re­verse merg­ing with En­liv­en Ther­a­peu­tics last week. Be­fore he was Imara’s med­ical chief, At­tie spent 11 years at Ac­celeron as VP, med­ical re­search. In a mi­ni-re­union, Venu­gopal worked for Pruzan­s­ki at In­ter­cept as head of strate­gic plan­ning, and since 2020 he had been VP of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment for Lu­ca Santarel­li at Vec­tivBio.
→ Whole­sale changes are be­ing made at Scynex­is, and not just with a slimmed-down pipeline as it shops around for a com­mer­cial­iza­tion part­ner with Brex­afemme. CEO Mar­co Tagli­et­ti will re­tire on Dec. 31, set­ting up CMO David An­gu­lo to re­place him as we ring in 2023. Ex-Ei­sai and Ather­sys fi­nance chief Ivor Macleod’s first day as CFO will be Oct. 24, while chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer Chris­tine Coyne’s job has been phased out. Scynex­is will al­so be mak­ing more cuts to a staff that stood at 56 em­ploy­ees as of March 1, but the ex­act num­ber wasn’t re­vealed. Kyle LaHu­cik has more on a com­pa­ny in flux.
→ Lyn Bara­nows­ki has tak­en over for Bruce Mont­gomery as CEO of Seat­tle-based pul­monary dis­ease out­fit Ava­lyn Phar­ma, once known as Genoa Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Since 2018, Bara­nows­ki knows the pul­monary space well from her four years as op­er­a­tions chief at Al­ta­vant, and from 2013-18, the No­var­tis alum was SVP of cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment & strat­e­gy with Melin­ta Ther­a­peu­tics. Ava­lyn’s lead pro­gram is an in­haled ver­sion of pir­fenidone named AP01 for id­io­path­ic pul­monary fi­bro­sis.
→ The CEO sit­u­a­tion has tak­en a turn at Mar­a­vai Life­Sciences, where for­mer Dana­her SVP Trey Mar­tin had suc­ceed­ed Carl Hull ear­li­er this month — or so we thought. Three Dana­her sub­sidiaries have a bone to pick with the ap­point­ment, su­ing Mar­tin and Mar­a­vai, and “al­leg­ing that Mar­tin is in breach of a non­com­pe­ti­tion agree­ment.” With a tem­po­rary re­strain­ing or­der in place, Hull didn’t hide his dis­plea­sure as he re­takes his old po­si­tion. “We have com­plete con­fi­dence in Trey and are ap­palled that Dana­her would seek to lever­age a non­com­pe­ti­tion agree­ment to pre­vent Trey from ad­vanc­ing his ca­reer,” Hull said in a state­ment.
→ Al­ice Zhang’s AI drug dis­cov­ery shop Verge Ge­nomics has in­stalled 14-year Bio­gen vet John Ap­ple­gate as CFO. For­mer­ly the VP of fi­nance & ac­count­ing with Va­lo Health, Ap­ple­gate closed out his Bio­gen ca­reer in 2019 as head of R&D fi­nance. Zhang just con­tributed to Ochre Bio’s $30 mil­lion Se­ries A, while Verge’s lat­est round of fund­ing to­taled $98 mil­lion in De­cem­ber 2021. In an­oth­er Bio­gen con­nec­tion, ex-R&D chief and cur­rent Voy­ager CEO Al San­drock joined the board of di­rec­tors at Verge in Feb­ru­ary.
→ Zen­tal­is Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals has been re­lent­less with its lead­er­ship moves since the Kim Black­well era be­gan in May with a $200 mil­lion cash in­fu­sion, pro­mot­ing co-founders Cam Gal­lagher and Kevin Bunker while pick­ing up a CMO and gen­er­al coun­sel in that span. This week Zen­tal­is re­turns to Peer Re­view with Mark Lack­n­er as chief trans­la­tion­al of­fi­cer, head of bio­mark­er strat­e­gy. Be­fore he was head of bi­ol­o­gy and trans­la­tion­al sci­ences for Ideaya Bio­sciences, Lack­n­er led the on­col­o­gy ear­ly-stage bio­mark­er group as part of his 13 years at Genen­tech.
→ Co-found­ed and chaired by Till­man Gern­gross, on­col­o­gy out­fit Ankyra Ther­a­peu­tics has re­cruit­ed Joseph Elas­sal as CMO. Elas­sal has two stints at Re­gen­eron on his ré­sumé: one from 2012-18, and the oth­er as se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor, glob­al med­ical af­fairs, on­col­o­gy since 2020. In be­tween, he was a deputy VP at PhRMA and a se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor for Replimune. Ankyra bagged a $45 mil­lion Se­ries B in No­vem­ber 2021 with the help of Po­laris, GV and a num­ber of oth­er in­vestors.
→ An­oth­er Gern­gross com­pa­ny, In­vivyd, came out swing­ing when it was known as Ada­gio, with big as­pi­ra­tions for its Covid-19 mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body along with big­ger bucks. But the drug struck out against Omi­cron, and Gern­gross was gone as CEO with­in a cou­ple months. The name changed to In­vivyd a few weeks ago, but the un­ease re­mains the same, as CFO/CBO Jane Hen­der­son and chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer Er­ic Kim­ble have packed their bags. Fred Driscoll, a CFO with Ren­o­va­cor, Flex­ion Ther­a­peu­tics and No­vavax, will bridge the gap as in­ter­im fi­nance chief as In­vivyd al­so says good­bye to an un­spec­i­fied num­ber of staffers.
→ Pitts­burgh’s NeuBase Ther­a­peu­tics has al­so been be­set by lay­offs, dis­miss­ing 60% of its em­ploy­ees this week while piv­ot­ing to gene edit­ing. San­dra Ro­jas-Caro, NeuBase’s CMO since May 2021 who al­so be­gan an­oth­er role as head of R&D this past April, hand­ed in her res­ig­na­tion.
→ As George Church’s Colos­sal Bio­sciences con­tin­ues its quest to bring back the wool­ly mam­moth, its com­pu­ta­tion­al bi­ol­o­gy spin­out Form Bio has locked in Mark Swend­sen as chief rev­enue of­fi­cer. Swend­sen held the same po­si­tion at DNAnexus be­fore com­ing to Form Bio, which chris­tened the boat with a $30 mil­lion Se­ries A round in late Sep­tem­ber.
→ Flag­ship’s All­tr­na has dipped in­to the tal­ent pool of the in­cu­ba­tor’s most fa­mous cre­ation to find its VP, dis­cov­ery plat­form. Car­o­line Köhrer comes to the tR­NA play­er af­ter more than two years as Mod­er­na’s di­rec­tor of RNA sci­ence — a key cog in the de­vel­op­ment of its Covid-19 vac­cine — and five years over­all. All­tr­na chief Michelle Wern­er was part of Flag­ship’s rapid-fire CEO-part­ner ap­point­ments in April that in­clud­ed Mar­go Geor­giadis and for­mer Ab­b­Vie pres­i­dent Michael Sev­eri­no.
→ While we have Flag­ship com­pa­nies on our mind, Sen­da Bio­sciences has pulled in two new ex­ecs with the ap­point­ments of Lori Rudolph-Owen as COO and Bar­bara Bis­pham as gen­er­al coun­sel. Rudolph-Owen hails from Goldfinch Bio, where she most re­cent­ly served as chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer. Pri­or to that, Rudolph-Owen held a num­ber of roles at Pfiz­er, AM­AG Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, MGI Phar­ma, Ver­tex and Mil­len­ni­um Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Bis­pham joins Sen­da from Bridge­Bio, where she was VP, head of le­gal. Pri­or to that, Bis­pham was with Good­win Proc­ter, Coo­ley and Reed Smith.
→ Not to be con­fused with the great bas­ket­ball Hall of Famer Bob Pet­tit, Robert Pe­tit has be­come the head of ear­ly clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Ori­o­n­is Bio­sciences, a can­cer biotech that racked up $55 mil­lion in fi­nanc­ing this week. Pe­tit chairs the sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board and is the ex-CSO of Ad­vax­is, which hap­pened to make news the same day as Ori­o­n­is’ raise by merg­ing with Ay­ala Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. One more thing about Ori­o­n­is: Cor­morant As­set Man­age­ment founder and chief ex­ec­u­tive Bi­hua Chen is now a mem­ber of the board.
→ Nigel Horscroft has set­tled in as CSO of Ger­man an­tivi­ral biotech Atri­va Ther­a­peu­tics, re­plac­ing cur­rent sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board chair­man Oliv­er Planz. Horscroft brings Big Phar­ma cre­den­tials with him from Pfiz­er, and dur­ing his time at Cure­Vac from 2012-20, he was pro­mot­ed to area head, mol­e­c­u­lar ther­a­py. Atri­va has al­so picked up two oth­er clin­i­cal ex­ecs this year: Stephan Witte (VP, clin­i­cal sci­ence and op­er­a­tions) in Jan­u­ary and Tim Ov­erend (VP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and reg­u­la­to­ry) in Ju­ly.
→ Stay­ing in Ger­many, Boehringer In­gel­heim and GSK alum Thomas Bo­gen­rieder has joined ade­n­ovirus-based can­cer biotech Aba­los Ther­a­peu­tics as CMO. Bo­gen­rieder had held the role of chief clin­i­cal of­fi­cer at Swiss-based AMAL Ther­a­peu­tics since Ju­ly 2020 and is the ex-med­ical chief of Evax­ion Biotech. A year ago around this time, Aba­los topped off its Se­ries A with $37.6 mil­lion in ad­di­tion­al fund­ing.
→ In Sep­tem­ber 2021, we told you about Roche vet An­ja Harmeier tak­ing the CEO job at Bel­gian re­myeli­na­tion biotech Rewind Ther­a­peu­tics. Fast for­ward to this week, where Rewind has se­lect­ed Irene Knue­sel as CSO. Knue­sel has Roche ties her­self, clos­ing out her six-year tenure in 2019 as the phar­ma gi­ant’s head of the neu­roim­munol­o­gy and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion sec­tion. In­ci­den­tal­ly, Roche is un­der the mi­cro­scope again in the Alzheimer’s space as we await da­ta for its re­sus­ci­tat­ed drug gan­tenerum­ab.
→ Tar­get­ing sol­id tu­mors, Im­muneer­ing — one of many biotechs that took the Nas­daq plunge at the zenith of IPOs in 2021 — has brought in Leah Neufeld as chief peo­ple of­fi­cer. Neufeld has worked in hu­man re­sources for com­pa­nies of all sizes, with J&J, Dai­ichi Sankyo and Pre­vail pack­ing her ré­sumé. The one-time head of HR at In­ter­cept was re­cent­ly the chief hu­man re­sources of­fi­cer for Jiang­su Hen­grui sub­sidiary Luzsana Biotech­nol­o­gy.
→ Ash­vattha Ther­a­peu­tics, a hy­drox­yl den­drimer (HD) biotech based in the Bay Area, has pegged Steve Mari­ci­ch as CMO. Mari­ci­ch re­cent­ly held the CMO post at Scripps’ Cal­i­br, and he’s been the med­ical chief at Al­lievex, the de­vel­op­er of a drug for San­fil­ip­po syn­drome type B that was once in Bio­Marin’s hands.
→ Jes­si­ca Atkin­son has been ap­point­ed CBO of Im­muneID, a biotech out of Stephen Elledge’s lab at Har­vard that’s ze­ro­ing in on an­ti­bod­ies with its AI plat­form, called aiSPIRE. Atkin­son rose to VP, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at Foun­da­tion Med­i­cine in 2019 af­ter Roche’s $2.4 bil­lion takeover, and she just had a brief run as SVP, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment of Glympse Bio.
→ Plain­ly-named IO Biotech, a Nas­daq new­com­er in 2021 that’s go­ing af­ter IDO and PD-L1 with its can­cer drugs IO102 and IO103, has en­list­ed Amy Sul­li­van as CFO. Sul­li­van had a seat at the ne­go­ti­at­ing ta­ble as chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer of Kiadis when it was pur­chased by Sanofi for $358 mil­lion. The ex-SVP of cor­po­rate af­fairs at Keryx Bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals was al­so VP, in­vestor re­la­tions and cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions with AM­AG Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.
→ Bel­gian biotech Biox­odes is chang­ing up the top ex­ec seat with the ap­point­ment of Marc Dechamps as CEO. Dechamps takes over the reins from com­pa­ny founder Ed­mond God­froid, who is tran­si­tion­ing in­to the roles of COO and CSO. Dechamps brings with him ex­pe­ri­ence from his times at GSK and Vi­iV Health­care to the new role.
→ San Diego RNA edit­ing biotech ADARx Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals is a busy bee in Peer Re­view too, nam­ing Fe­rian­das Gre­b­likas as VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment af­ter hir­ing CFO Chris Pren­tiss and CMC VP Christo­pher Clae­boe this year. A vet­er­an of No­vo Nordisk, Bio­gen and Bax­ter, Gre­b­likas comes to ADARx from Tra­vere Ther­a­peu­tics, where he was a se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor and clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment lead. And in a pre­vi­ous gig, he worked for JJ Bi­en­aimé as Bio­Marin’s med­ical di­rec­tor of phenylke­tonuria clin­i­cal tri­als.
→ Com­ing up on a year since its $60 mil­lion Se­ries A, STAT3- and STAT6-fo­cused Re­cludix Phar­ma is back in Peer Re­view with Paul Smith as SVP of bi­ol­o­gy. Smith, the ex-glob­al re­search lead for Gilenya with No­var­tis, has al­so been se­nior di­rec­tor of in­flam­ma­tion and au­toim­mu­ni­ty at In­cyte. He held the role of VP, dis­cov­ery bi­ol­o­gy at Con­nect Bio­phar­ma be­fore piv­ot­ing to Re­cludix, a com­pa­ny out of San Diego that in­tro­duced CBO Matthew Calde­mey­er in late Sep­tem­ber.
→ Transpa­cif­ic on­col­o­gy biotech An­Heart Ther­a­peu­tics, which se­cured a $61 mil­lion Se­ries B round last year, has wel­comed aboard Hein­rich Farin as se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor, clin­i­cal re­search and Michael Humphries as VP, head of US med­ical af­fairs. Farin hails from Mi­rati, where he served as se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor and has a pri­or stint as glob­al se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor, clin­i­cal re­search and de­vel­op­ment at BeiGene. Ear­li­er in his ca­reer, Farin had roles at Ari­ad Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Bax­al­ta. Mean­while, Humphries brings ex­per­tise from his time at Take­da On­col­o­gy, where he served as se­nior sci­en­tif­ic di­rec­tor of glob­al med­ical af­fairs. Pri­or to Take­da, Humphries had gigs at Bay­er Health­care Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Ar­ray Bio­phar­ma.
→ Swiss LIL­RB (leuko­cyte im­munoglob­u­lin-like re­cep­tor sub­fam­i­ly B) biotech Im­munOs Ther­a­peu­tics has pegged Hilmar Ebers­bach as VP, an­ti­body de­vel­op­ment and pro­tein en­gi­neer­ing. Ebers­bach had spent the last 15 years in bio­ther­a­peu­tic en­gi­neer­ing and gene ther­a­py at the No­var­tis In­sti­tutes for Bio­Med­ical Re­search.
→ Be­lieve it or not, Daniel Rip­ley has ven­tured off to High­T­ide Ther­a­peu­tics as SVP, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. Rip­ley is an Io­n­is BD vet who led glob­al busi­ness de­vel­op­ment for the last two years at Al­pha Bio­phar­ma, and as the brave souls of High­T­ide give NASH a whirl with its lead pro­gram HTD1801, he al­so has ex­pe­ri­ence in the space as SVP of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment, pro­gram and al­liance man­age­ment at Cona­tus Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, a No­var­tis part­ner plagued by NASH fail­ures that merged with His­to­gen in 2020.
→ GSK In­dia has named Bhushan Ak­shikar as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, suc­ceed­ing Srid­har Venkatesh, who is tran­si­tion­ing to a se­nior role with­in the GSK Group. Ak­shikar joined GSK In­dia in Sep­tem­ber 2011. Pri­or to GSK, Ak­shikar had a 15-year stint at J&J’s Janssen.
→ Ex-AM­AG Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals CEO Bri­an Pereira has been named chair­man at KalVista fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Mar­tin Ed­wards and a re­sound­ing tri­al fail­ure. Ear­li­er this month, KalVista had to stop a Phase II tri­al of its hered­i­tary an­gioede­ma drug KVD824 af­ter is­sues with liv­er en­zymes were de­tect­ed through­out all three treat­ment groups. Pereira has been pres­i­dent and CEO of Ot­su­ka sub Vis­ter­ra since 2013.
→ Pro­teomics biotech So­ma­Log­ic, which re­verse-merged on­to Nas­daq with Eli Cas­din’s SPAC with a $1.2 bil­lion val­u­a­tion last April, has tapped Troy Cox as ex­ec­u­tive chair of the board of di­rec­tors, tak­ing over from Chuck Lil­lis, who will re­main on the board. Cox for­mer­ly served as pres­i­dent and CEO of Foun­da­tion Med­i­cine and was SVP and of­fi­cer at Genen­tech and held roles at UCB, Sanofi-Aven­tis and Scher­ing-Plough.
→ Rock­et Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals chief Gau­rav Shah is now chair­man of the board at Swiss gene ther­a­py de­vel­op­er An­jar­i­um Bio­sciences, which un­veiled a $61 mil­lion launch round in Sep­tem­ber 2021 thanks to such big-name in­vestors as Pfiz­er and Abing­worth. And af­ter join­ing the board at On­corus in June, ex-Dicer­na CEO Doug Fam­brough al­so has a place in An­jar­i­um’s board­room.
→ Cell pro­cess­ing shop Cu­rate Bio­sciences has re­served space for Shah’s chief tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer at Rock­et, Mayo Pu­jols, on the board of di­rec­tors. Pu­jols was in charge of glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ing for liso-cel (now Breyanzi) as Cel­gene’s VP of glob­al CAR-T op­er­a­tions and tech­nol­o­gy.
→ Bel­gian in­fec­tious dis­ease biotech Ex­e­Vir has ap­point­ed Jeanne Bol­ger to chair the board of di­rec­tors. Af­ter 13 years at GSK, Bol­ger switched to an­oth­er phar­ma gi­ant as VP of sci­en­tif­ic li­cens­ing at J&J, lat­er be­com­ing the VP of ven­ture in­vest­ing at John­son & John­son In­no­va­tion (JJDC).
→ The­seus Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals — a TKI play­er from Or­biMed whose stock $THRX re­cent­ly hit its nadir prac­ti­cal­ly a year to the day that it joined Nas­daq in a none-too-shock­ing de­vel­op­ment in this mar­ket — has added In­cyte CMO Steven Stein to the board of di­rec­tors. Stein is a for­mer clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment ex­ec with GSK and No­var­tis On­col­o­gy.
→ Geron’s EVP, cor­po­rate strat­e­gy and chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer Anil Ka­pur is mak­ing his way to the board of di­rec­tors at Ve­rastem On­col­o­gy. Ka­pur is the for­mer head of ear­ly as­sets, bio­mark­ers and ex­ter­nal in­no­va­tion for world­wide on­col­o­gy com­mer­cial­iza­tion for Bris­tol My­ers Squibb and the ex-CCO at Ac­tini­um.
→ Chi­na-based Hangzhou Qi­han Biotech has brought on Tony Ho to its board of di­rec­tors. Ho joins af­ter a four-year stint at CRISPR Ther­a­peu­tics, where he most re­cent­ly served as EVP and head of re­search & de­vel­op­ment. Ho’s pri­or ex­pe­ri­ence in­cludes roles as SVP and head of on­col­o­gy in­te­gra­tion and in­no­va­tion at As­traZeneca, head of neu­rol­o­gy and oph­thal­mol­o­gy at Mer­ck and co-founder and CSO at Neu­ronyx.
→ Fol­low­ing a re­cent Se­ries C fi­nanc­ing round, In­ver­sa­go Phar­ma has reeled in Ed Math­ers and Nan­na Lüneborg to its board of di­rec­tors. Math­ers is a gen­er­al part­ner at New En­ter­prise As­so­ci­ates and has pre­vi­ous­ly served as EVP, cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment and ven­ture at Med­Im­mune. Math­ers cur­rent­ly serves as a di­rec­tor to a host of com­pa­nies, in­clud­ing Rhythm Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Syn­log­ic, Sen­ti Bio, In­ozyme, Ak­ou­os and Affinia. Mean­while, Lüneborg is a gen­er­al part­ner at For­bion and for­mer­ly served a decade-long stint as a part­ner at No­vo Ven­tures.
→ The Illi­nois Biotech­nol­o­gy In­no­va­tion Or­ga­ni­za­tion (iBIO) has added three new faces to its board of di­rec­tors with the ap­point­ments of: Rahul Jerath (se­nior di­rec­tor, head of on­col­o­gy busi­ness de­vel­op­ment & ac­qui­si­tions at Ab­b­Vie), Phil Ten­nant (SVP and head of on­col­o­gy busi­ness unit at Astel­las), and Joe Whalen (SVP, al­liances & in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at Hori­zon Ther­a­peu­tics).
Il­lus­tra­tion: Kim Ryu for End­points News
Key takeaways:
The data supporting regulatory approval alone are often insufficient for demonstrating the added benefit of a new therapy
Planning in advance to continuously deliver data that illustrate value and post-launch, to not only the regulator, but payers, healthcare professionals, and patients results in more clinically meaningful benefits
By working cross-functionally, biopharmaceutical teams can uncover evidence gaps and better shape registration trials to ensure the needs of as many stakeholders as possible are met
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The report builds on a price transparency law passed in California in 2017, which requires manufacturers to report year-over-year spending increases to prescription drugs’ WAC prices, but does not include net prices, which ICER took issue with.
The Medicines Patent Pool on Thursday unveiled a new voluntary licensing agreement with Novartis to increase access to its patented, second-line chronic myeloid leukemia drug Tasigna (nilotinib) in certain lower-income countries.
The drug, which is on the WHO’s list of essential medicines, will now be made by select generic manufacturers and offered in seven middle-income countries — Egypt, Guatemala, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tunisia — where patents on the product are pending or in force.
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Behind Amgen and Mirati are a whole host of players lining up their own KRAS candidates.
Roche is no exception. The Big Pharma already has its own in-house KRAS drug from its subsidiary Genentech that is currently in Phase I studies, but is now expanding its options.
Roche has licensed a preclinical KRAS program from Hookipa Pharma for $25 million upfront, Hookipa announced Thursday morning. Roche also has the option of adding a second immunotherapy candidate for $15 million.
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Less than 2 years after some Oxford grads pieced together a little £6 million seed fund to launch their discovery outfit, the antibody developer has been scooped up by one of the pharma giants scouting the bargain aisle of early-stage drug development.
And the founders did considerably better than the seed round might suggest.
AbbVie is swooping in for the buyout with $255 million in cash for DJS Antibodies, plus some unspecified milestones that could range quite high, given the preclinical nature of the GPCR work involved.
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Bioscience & Technology Business Center
The University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
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