Black Diamond Therapeutics continues to narrow its focus.
Monday morning, the cancer company announced that it was spinning out its antibody work into a new biotech called Launchpad Therapeutics. Launchpad will start out with $30 million from Versant Ventures and venture capital firm NEA, and will house Black Diamond’s discovery-stage antibody work. It’s also getting a license to use Black Diamond’s drug discovery platform.
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As the biotech financial markets shift from a peak 12 months ago, even well-funded biotechs are watching pipeline burn rates as uncertainty surrounds the next investment rounds.
There is however positive news from the investment sector on future demand. According to Fred Cohen, co-founder, and chairman of Monograph Capital Partners in San Francisco “pharma has a tremendous need for new products and it will only accelerate over the next eight years”. But he said what investors want is real innovation, “not slightly better because the payers are not going to pay you for just slightly better.”
If we’ve learned anything from our annual Women in Biopharma R&D report over the last four years, it’s that there’s much to celebrate.
We received more than 500 nominations this year highlighting extraordinary women who are blazing trails in drug development. While selecting just 20 honorees has become increasingly difficult, we were thrilled to debut this year’s group with you last week. They’re scientists, CEOs, researchers and more who have developed new drugs for rare and life-threatening diseases, changed the way we think about common conditions such as migraine, and broken boundaries.
FDA granted accelerated approval to Mirati’s KRAS drug adagrasib, which will be marketed as Krazati. The green light comes two days ahead of the expected decision and cements the biotech as the second in the KRAS field behind leader Amgen, maker of the May 2021-approved Lumakras.
The nod is for second-line treatment for adult patients with KRAS G12C-mutated locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
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Migraine is a common neurological disorder affecting more than one billion people worldwide.1 The impact of migraine is far-reaching and contributes to a high disease burden that can take an enormous toll on a person’s physical and mental health.
In addition to debilitating symptoms including pain, visual disturbances, nausea and sensitivity to light and sound,2 migraine is associated with a high risk for comorbid psychiatric conditions, especially depression and anxiety.3 Depression is over 2.5 times more common in people with migraine than in the general population, and anxiety disorders—including generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and panic disorder—are 2 to 5 times more prevalent in people with migraine.4 Psychiatric comorbidities are more common in those with a greater burden of disease from migraine.3
NEW ORLEANS — Regeneron gave researchers a first look at interim results from its Phase II study of a CD20xCD3 bispecific antibody in patients with relapsed/refractory follicular lymphoma, with a planned regulatory filing on tap for next year as it seeks to catch up with rival Roche.
Trial investigators said 81.8% of 121 patients with the disease responded to Regeneron’s drug odronextamab, and that 75.2% had a complete response as of the Sept. 15 data cutoff. Median duration of response and median duration of complete response were both 20.5 months, with median progression-free survival of 20.2 months, according to a Monday afternoon presentation at the annual American Society of Hematology conference.
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Vertex and Moderna’s partnership on cystic fibrosis is finally starting to bear fruit.
The two announced Monday morning that the first program from their collaboration will enter the clinic “in the coming weeks” after the FDA cleared its IND. Researchers will test the drug, known as VX-522, in adults with cystic fibrosis in a single dose escalation study. Participants must also have “a CFTR genotype not [be] responsive to CFTR modulator therapy,” Vertex added.
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NEW ORLEANS — ALX Oncology said it’s getting some promising, if very early, signals from a small trial that could give its CD47 drug new life.
The biotech released data from a Phase I dose-escalation study Monday, showing that three patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) all saw a positive response to a combination therapy that included evorpacept, ALX’s CD47-targeting candidate.
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NEW ORLEANS — Following up on two subsets presented Saturday, Eli Lilly’s Loxo Oncology fleshed out the data on its non-covalent BTK inhibitor pirtobrutinib in patients with mantle cell lymphomas as an FDA decision looms on whether the daily pill can enter a field covered by three BTK rivals.
Loxo reported that 57.8% of MCL patients responded to pirtobrutinib. That comes from a group of 90 patients in the Phase I/II BRUIN trial who’d previously received a covalent BTK inhibitor. Eighteen patients (20%) had a complete response and 34 patients (37.8%) had a partial response. Stable disease was reported in 14 patients (15.6%).
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After spinning out the consumer division and trimming down at the headquarters for the post-pandemic era, GSK chief Emma Walmsley has found a new home for the multinational pharma giant in London. And she plans a big move-in to the HQ in early 2024 — after the architects put the finishing touches to the structure next year.
GSK is moving out of west London and into the city’s center, with HQ staff taking up residence in the 140,000-square-foot Earnshaw building close to the Tottenham Court Road station. Hiving off the consumer unit took 800 staffers out of the equation for GSK House by the M4, which had 3,500 employees remaining in the London center before the consolidation into the new building takes that number down another notch, to around 3,000.
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