Stories making headlines today in the biopharma industry:
BeiGene, the Chinese biotech company, has drawn curtains on its partnership with Shoreline Biosciences which was positioned as BeiGene's step into cell therapy. The collaboration was prematurely terminated, despite a $45 million upfront payment by BeiGene at the outset in January 2022. The partnership was burgeoning to develop cell therapies across four therapeutic targets, with BeiGene tasked with holding worldwide commercial rights. The untimely termination came after a strategic portfolio review, fueled majorly by BeiGene's internal prioritization decisions and not due to flaws in Shoreline’s platform technology.
Elsewhere, Gilead Sciences was the sole bidder for liver disease biotech CymaBay Therapeutics, as revealed in recent securities filings. Its initial proposal was amplified by $9.50 per share, eventually settling on a final offer of $32.50 per share, marking a 27% premium to the prior day's closing price. The transaction, worth a mammoth $4.3 billion, underscores a prevailing trend for big Pharma companies to scoop up late-stage deals to consolidate their drug pipelines.
Meanwhile, NGM Bio is set to transition to a private company after more than a decade and a half in operation. NGM Bio's largest shareholder, biotech investor The Column Group, is putting plans in motion to privatize the company in a deal estimated at $135.0 million, following a complex R&D journey in NASH, retinal diseases and other areas.
In terms of workforce reduction, Thermo Fisher reported a contraction of 8,000 roles, representing about 6% of its workforce in 2023, with the Americas region witnessing the majority of the change. The company noted a 5% dip in its 2023 revenue to $42.86 billion, down from $44.9 billion in the previous year.
Finally, Celldex Therapeutics' anti-KIT antibody fulfilled the primary objective in a mid-stage test for chronic spontaneous urticaria, according to initial results. Analysts are optimistic that Celldex's therapy will pose significant competition to a similar but more advanced therapy by Novartis, particularly given there are currently no approved treatments for patients who do not respond to Xolair, a drug manufactured jointly by Novartis and Genentech.
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