The Week In Biopharma, May 2 – 6

Contract Research (CROs)

• Citius Pharmaceuticals to Accelerate Phase 3 Mino-Lok Trial by Expanding Trial Sites Internationally (USA)
• Novotech Acquires U.S. CRO NCGS (USA)
• Avance Biosciences Validates 26,000 Square Feet of New Laboratory Space (USA)
• Curebase attracts Gilead as backer in $40M financing to expand business (USA)
• Elligo, WHYZE join forces to break down barriers for clinical trials (USA/Ireland)
• Symeres Acquires Organix (USA)

Contract Development and Manufacturing (CDMO)

• Owen Mumford and Stevanato Group Sign Collaboration Agreement (UK/Italy)
• Kindeva Drug Delivery to Acquire iPharma Labs (USA)
• Alcami Partners with Civica Rx in Multi-Year Agreement (USA)
• Societal CDMO Enters Manufacturing & Supply Agreement with InfectoPharm (USA)
• Avantor Invests in Manufacturing and Distribution Hub in (Singapore)
• Astorg to Acquire CDMO CordenPharma from ICIG (USA)
• CDMO ExcellGene and Cytena Form Collaboration (Switzerland/ Germany)
• Matica Bio Opens New Cell and Gene Therapy GMP Facility (USA)
• Recipharm Expands pMDI Product Development Capabilities (Sweden)

Biopharma

• Sen-Jam Pharmaceutical Opens Enrollment for Patients in Their COVID Therapy Phase 2 Clinical Trial in Nepal and Engages With Strategic Investor for Worldwide Distribution (Nepal)
• With Sarepta in its sights, PepGen prices IPO to fund DMD trials (USA)
• Xencor culls 2 bispecifics after early-phase solid tumor data underwhelm (USA)
• Intellia puts pedal to the metal as 3 new candidates prepped for clinic (USA)
• Consortium to automate cell therapy manufacturing welcomes Thermo Fisher and Charles River Labs (USA)
• Defying biotech bears, Sanofi manufacturing spinoff ‘EUROAPI,’ surges on Paris debut (France)
• Novartis suspends production of two radiopharmaceutical drugs over quality concerns (Switzerland)
• FDA Approves AstraZeneca, Daiichi Sankyo’s ENHERTU in Breast Cancer (USA)
• Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Limits Use of Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine to Certain Individuals (USA)
• Abelacimab: First Factor XI Inhibitor to Enroll Patients in a Phase 3 Clinical Trial (USA)
• bio’s Turbocharged Fermenter Reduces Biomanufacturing Costs by 50% (the Netherlands)
• Fluent BioSciences expands access to industry’s most flexible and scalable technology (PIPseq™) to enable sensitive single-cell transcriptome analysis in any laboratory (USA)
• Hearing loss company Acousia Therapeutics: first patient with age-related hearing loss treated with ACOU085 (Germany)
• Aeglea BioTherapeutics Announces $45 Million Registered Direct Offering Priced at a Premium to Market (USA)
• Illumina and Deerfield Management partner to accelerate drug development (USA)
• CNBX Pharmaceuticals Granted Patent in Hong Kong (China)
• Anitoa Introduces Portable RT-PCR Molecular Test for Dengue Virus (USA)
• TIKOMED and IQVIA announce a strategic collaboration for the development of TIKOMED’s lead drug platform candidate ILB® (Sweden)
• Immunic Announces Start of Patient Cohorts in Its Phase 1 Clinical Trial of IMU-856 in Celiac Disease (USA)
• Caris’ Precision Oncology Alliance Welcomes Loma Linda University Cancer Center (USA)
• Tetra Bio-Pharma and Cannvalate Enter Into Partnership (USA/Australia)
• Invicro Opens New Global Headquarters and Laboratory in Needham, Mass. (USA)
• ImaginAb Announces New Supply Agreement to Supply Genmab A/S with its investigational CD8 ImmunoPET agent (USA)
• BioCryst’s voluntary pause turns FDA-hold as investigation reveals likely culprit behind safety signals (USA)
• Avalo Therapeutics to lay off 33% of staff amidst market struggles and penny stock status (USA)
• Jazz doubles down on sleep disorders, putting down $50M cash to pluck Sumitomo drug for the pipeline (USA)
• Intercept sells international rights to liver drug in $400M deal (USA)
• Argenx drug succeeds in trial, beats sales forecasts (the Netherlands)
• Byondis Partners with Medac to Commercialize Antibody-Drug Conjugate (the Netherlands/Germany)
• FDA Permits Marketing for New Test to Improve Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease (USA)
• Mediso acquires nuclear medicine supplier Bartec Technologies (UK)
• Unchained Labs revs up its gene therapy engine, acquires NanoView Biosciences! (USA)
• Amphista Therapeutics Enters Strategic Collaboration with Merck for Discovery and Development of Targeted Protein Degradation Therapeutics (UK)
• Catalyst Clinical Research Acquires Aptus Clinical to Accelerate European Expansion, Broaden Client Services, and Enhance Patient Impact (USA)
• Apnimed closes $62.5M series C after working tirelessly on lead sleep disorder drug (USA)
• Kezar scarred as midphase autoimmune blowup raises doubts about pipeline-in-a-drug vision (USA)
• Endo Purchases Development-Stage, Ready-to-Use Injectable Product Candidates from Nevakar (USA)
• Sapience Therapeutics Receives FDA Orphan Drug Designation for ST101 for the Treatment of Advanced Melanoma (USA)
• AmplifyBio to Drive Quality Excellence with Veeva Vault Quality Suite (USA)
• Dianthus Therapeutics Launches with $100M to Develop Selective Antibody Complement Therapeutics to Treat Severe and Rare Autoimmune Diseases (USA)
• Hemispherian raises seed funding for novel cancer therapeutics (Norway)
• Sierra wanted a partnership, but GSK wanted the store: How the $1.9B buyout came to be (USA)
• Bad news from FDA prompts Spero to lay off 75% of staff, drop UTI drug (USA)
• After a dismal last year, Sesen Bio grasps for alternatives to stay afloat (USA)
• Tackling toxicity, Tubulis lands $63M to advance ADC pipeline spearheaded by Adcetris rival (Germany)
• Pfizer cleared to restart hemophilia gene therapy trial (USA)
• BeiGene Breaks Ground on NJ Manufacturing and Clinical R&D Center (USA)
• Gilead, Dragonfly Enter Onco & Inflammation Strategic Alliance (USA)
• AstraZeneca Plans New R&D Center and Alexion Headquarters (USA)
• Kindeva Drug Delivery to Acquire iPharma Labs (USA)
• Bachem Enters Collaboration with Lilly (USA)
• WuXi Advanced Therapies and A*STAR Form Partnership (China/Singapore)
• Vita Therapeutics Relocates to University of Maryland BioPark (USA)
• Zucara Therapeutics Secures Additional Funding from GlycoNet and Mitacs for the Development of ZT-01 (Canada)
• Vertex surprised by FDA halt of diabetes cell therapy study (USA)

Artificial Intelligence

• CHOP Researchers Develop New Computational Tool to Interpret Clinical Significance of Cancer Mutations (USA)
• Insilico Medicine expands synthetic lethality portfolio with nomination of a preclinical candidate targeting MAT2A for the treatment of MTAP-deleted cancers (USA)
• WCG, Deep 6 AI team up to increase speed, diversity of clinical trials (USA)