Deals of the Week: GSK's Stealth Move To The Coasts

GlaxoSmithKline is following some of its big pharma peers to key innovation hubs in the U.S. by opening satellite R&D centers in San Diego and Cambridge, MA.

When Johnson & Johnson opened its innovation center in Boston earlier this year, the company made a big to-do about the move and announced plans to fund two startups there. Pfizer, meanwhile, announced a significant $100 million investment through a collaboration with local hospitals and academic institutions when it anointed the Boston area the headquarters for its academic deal engine, the Centers for Therapeutic Innovation.

GSK, on the other hand, went in a different direction with its announcement, unveiling the move … via blog post. We couldn’t help but notice the difference in tactics and wonder if GSK’s decision to downplay the announcement reflects its ambitions for the satellite offices.  Whatever the reason, GSK clearly views the expansion as an evolution of its business development strategy, not a seismic shift in the way it approaches R&D.

GSK’s Damien McDevitt, VP Business Development, R&D Therapy Areas, will run the California center. He confirmed details in an interview Dec. 10. "These are both small virtual offices,” he said. “They are not large R&D centers by any stretch of the imagination.” The San Diego office will host about five to 10 scientists and the Boston office will have about 10 to 12, with a heavy emphasis on business development, he said.

"We have always had collaboration activities in these two locations, but what we haven’t had, at least on the West Coast, is a satellite office to be able to work more closely with all the groups we work with, including academia, venture and biotech,” he said. The company’s main U.S. R&D offices are located in Research Triangle Park, NC, and Philadelphia. GSK’s venture group, SR One, has offices in San Francisco and Boston. And its most recent venture effort, Action Potential Venture Capital, is headed by Imran Eba, who recently relocated to Cambridge to open up that shop.

GSK views its California and Boston R&D outposts as bridges to strengthen its existing relationships and forge new ones. A big focus, at least for the West Coast, will be on its partnership with VC firm Avalon Ventures. Earlier this year, the partners announced plans to fund 10 new single-molecule drug companies. Their first biotech, celiac disease drug developer Sitari Pharmaceuticals, was hatched with a $10 million Series A in November.

McDevitt said GSK and Avalon are aiming to establish at least three or four new companies by the end of 2014. But the new R&D centers won’t be solely focused on venture funding opportunities. They will be scouting new partnerships with academia and biotech, while also strengthening ties to existing partners. GSK has collaborations with some 22 West Coast partners, McDevitt pointed out.

GSK will be agnostic about therapy areas when it comes to new projects, and will consider both platform technologies and new products, with an emphasis on preclinical programs. Mostly, he said, the point is “keeping an open mind” and looking for breakthrough science. - Jessica Merrill

Our minds are always open, but we’re here to tell you when the deals are closed. With that in mind, here’s this week’s edition of...

Roche/Prothena: Prothena's new deal with Roche, worth $45 million in upfront payments and near-term clinical milestones and potentially up to $600 million to the biotech in the long run, gives it a major pharma partner that recently cited central nervous system diseases as a core R&D priority. In turn, Roche gets access to a synuclein antibody program that is ready for the clinic and has been guided by scientists who are world-class drug developers. The Dec. 10 deal revolves around PRX002, a Phase I-ready antibody that targets alpha-synuclein, believed to play a role in Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. But it also gives the partners opportunities to collaborate on related conditions. Prothena is receiving most of the first tranche of $45 million from Roche up front, but a small portion of that amount will be a milestone payment when Prothena moves the drug into Phase I, an event that it expects will happen in the first half of 2014, said CEO Dale Schenk.  Prothena also has a no-cost option, which it can exercise prior to approval, to co-promote PRX002 in the U.S. Costs, revenues and profits will be divided 70-30 between the partners, with Roche assuming the larger burden and reaping the larger bounty. Prothena has been looking to out-license PRX002 in order to concentrate on some of the compounds it is targeting for diseases in smaller populations. Roche traditionally has been strong in central nervous system diseases, but, as with other parts of its business, it has moved away from large-population conditions treated largely by primary care doctors, such as depression, to more complex CNS disorders, treated by specialists.- Wendy Diller

Biogen Idec/Proteostasis: Already no stranger to Alzheimer’s disease treatments, Biogen Idec has licensed another program showing promise in neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In a Dec. 9 deal, the biopharma disclosed a new partnership with Proteostasis Therapeutics to study and develop therapeutics inhibiting the enzyme ubiquitin specific peptidase 14, or Usp14. It’s believed that blocking Usp14 modulates proteasome activity and thereby speeds up degradation of toxic proteins such as alpha-synuclein in Parkinson’s and tau in Alzheimer’s, potentially spelling a disease-modifying approach. The deal includes research funding and potential development and commercial milestones totaling $200 million, as well as tiered royalties. The partners will jointly pay for and conduct preclinical research to identify lead compounds for clinical development. At undisclosed, pre-specified development points, Proteostasis will have the option to receive milestones or exercise an option for global co-development and co-commercialization rights. In addition, Biogen Idec is making an equity investment in Protestasis of undisclosed size. Biogen Idec already has Phase Ib anti-beta amyloid antibody candidate BIIB037, which could be moved directly to Phase III as soon as 2015 if trial data are strong enough, SVP of Neurology Al Sandrock said at Deutsche Bank’s BioFEST Conference in early December.  Cambridge, MA-based, privately held Proteostasis is backed by HealthCare Ventures, Fidelity Biosciences, New Enterprise Associates, Novartis Option Fund and Genzyme Ventures. - Stacy Lawrence

Retrophin/Kyalin/Novartis: Retrophin is making good on its plan to expand beyond its initial focus on ultra-rare diseases. On Dec. 12, it announced an agreement to acquire San Diego-based Kyalin Biosciences for an undisclosed sum. Kyalin’s lead asset carbetocin, a synthetic, nasally administered formulation of the hormone oxytocin, is in Phase I for symptoms of autism. On the same day, Retrophin made good on an August announcement that it would license in a drug to treat autism and schizophrenia from an unnamed major pharmaceutical company. The mystery licensor is Novartis, and the asset is Syntocinon (oxytocin), another synthetic, nasally delivered form of the same drug. Retrophin paid $5 million upfront plus undisclosed milestones and royalties for an exclusive U.S. license. Novartis had marketed the drug in the U.S. to assist with initial postpartum milk ejection, but discontinued it in 1997 for commercial reasons. The proceeds from a $25 million PIPE financing in August helped pay for the transactions. The licensing of Syntocinon also gives Retrophin a market-ready prescription treatment addressing a lactation deficiency for which there are no current therapies. Retrophin plans to re-launch it for that indication in the second quarter of 2014, providing an immediate, if likely small, revenue stream. As for the decision to double down on oxytocin, CEO Martin Shkreli said while Syntocinon is FDA approved, carbetocin is far behind in the clinic. “It might never be approved,” he said, “but it has superior qualities [to Syntocinon]. For instance, it’s longer-acting. So, there is a rationale to replace one with the other over time.” He added that there is a considerable amount of applied research and clinical experience behind the use of oxytocin in autism and schizophrenia. - Michael Goodman

GlaxoSmithKline/Inserm Transfert: Continuing a busy year of collaborations, the French National Institute for Health (INSERM) signed a worldwide licensing agreement Dec. 11 with GlaxoSmithKline to investigate the use of immune-checkpoint molecules in cancer treatment. GSK will pay Inserm Transfert, the tech-transfer subsidiary of INSERM, an undisclosed upfront fee with the possibility of development milestones and sales royalties. The pharma gets rights to develop and commercialize monoclonal antibodies that modulate the inducible T-cell costimulator (ICOS) protein, which offers the potential to enhance anti-tumor immune response. The agreement is part of a larger, long-term strategic alliance between INSERM and GSK. The collaboration “is making progress and illustrates a shared vision by GSK and Inserm Transfert that successful development of new drugs requires proactive action and alignment from both sides,” Inserm Transfert Executive VP, Head of Business Unit Open Innovation Augustin Godard said in a release. - Joseph Haas

Crealta/Savient: Start-up Crealta Pharmaceuticals will buy the gout drug Krystexxa (pegloticase) and other assets of troubled Savient Pharmaceuticals following an auction in bankruptcy court, the firms announced Dec. 11. Crealta will pay $120.4 million for the assets, marking its first significant investment toward becoming a specialty pharmaceutical company. Private-equity firm GTCR formed Crealta in August in partnership with Crealta’s CEO, Ed Fiorentino, and said it would invest up to $200 million to support the company. It’s the second company launched by Fiorentino and the PE firm. The two established Actient Holdings LLC in March 2009 and developed it into a diversified specialty pharmaceutical company through a series of five acquisitions, with GTCR providing a similar initial $200 million investment. Urology specialist Auxilium Pharmaceuticals acquired Actient earlier this year for $585 million upfront plus contingency payments. Now GTCR appears to be following a similar playbook in hopes of another successful exit, though turning around Krystexxa will take some effort. The drug was approved in 2009, but never achieved its perceived potential, challenged by Savient’s poor commercial planning and a market dominated by low-cost generic allopurinol. Savient never regained its footing after failing to sign a marketing partner for Krystexxa, and despite several leadership changes and a cost-reduction program, sales of the drug never led Savient into the black.- J.M.

Thanks to Flickr user ah zut for the lovely shot of one of our favorite coastlines, reproduced under Creative Commons license.

2013 Alliance of the Year Nominee: Roche/Polyphor

It's time for the IN VIVO Blog's Sixth Annual Deal of the Year! competition. This year we're once again presenting awards in three categories to highlight the most interesting and creative deal making solutions of the year. The categories are: M&A of the Year, Alliance of the Year, and Financing of the Year. We'll supply the nominations (about a half dozen in each category throughout over the next week or so) and you, the voting public, will decide the winners (by voting early and often, commencing once we've announced all the nominees). Strap yourselves in, it's The Race for the Roger™.

If catching an early big wave together justifies an alliance nomination then Roche and Polyphor look like contenders. They’re hoping to get a long, lucrative ride using novel science and new US and European regulations aimed at speeding up antibiotic development and approval.

And by choosing Switzerland-based Polyphor’s investigational macrocycle antibiotic POL7080 for development and commercialization, Roche has given notice that it’s back in the antimicrobials space again. For the first time in 30 years. In other words Roche hasn't been interested in developing antibiotics since most of you were old enough to vote -- a development worth honoring with a DOTY nod.

last time Roche developed an antibiotic,
BTTF was in theatres

The pact gives micro-sized Polyphor a big pharma partner to help it punch above its weight. Its three drug candidates, developed using its protein epitope mimetics (PEM) drug discovery technology, are POL7080; POL6326, a CXCR4 antagonist currently in Phase II and ear-marked for several indications; and POL6014, an elastase inhibitor that’s in pre-clinical studies.

Are antibiotic development incentives working? The FDA Safety and Innovation Act aims to prod companies along through the Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now (GAIN) provisions that are intended to spur development of treatments for resistant pathogens. Products receiving the qualified infectious disease product (QIDP) designations are eligible for fast track and priority review, as well as an additional five years of marketing exclusivity upon approval. And new antibacterial drugs could be eligible for a streamlined development program even if they would not be the first approved in a particular disease, according to FDA draft guidance.

Meanwhile, new guidance from the European Medicines Agency means marketing approvals for antibacterials against multi-drug-resistant bugs could be granted in Europe on expanded Phase II clinical trial data.

It’s a regulatory path that multinational Roche and privately-held Polyphor will explore together as Roche, the world’s largest maker of cancer drugs, tries to diversify into other areas.

Under terms of their alliance, announced in November, Roche will pay Polyphor up to CHF 500 million ($548 million) for the experimental antibiotic, which has only just entered Phase II testing. Roche will make an upfront payment of CHF 35 million and milestone payments of up to CHF 465 million to the Swiss biotech.

Roche’s previous legacy in the field of antibacterials involved development of Bactrim (trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole) in 1969, in collaboration with Wellcome PLC, and Rocephin (ceftriaxone sodium) in 1982.The success of Polyphor's drug would be the first new drug against gram-negative bacteria since the '60s, Polyphor CEO Jean-Pierre Obrecht says.

The two Swiss firms will be targeting the Gram-negative strain Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium found in hospitals and resistant to many antibiotic treatments, by a novel mode of action. It’s the first of a number of novel antibiotic candidate drugs being assembled by Roche’s pharmaceutical research and early development group pRED, which is now under the new leadership of John Reed.

“We’ve been rebuilding the infectious diseases area in pRED following the restructuring last year and we are now focusing on three areas of unmet medical need. These are hepatitis B, influenza and antibiotics – and this is our first demonstration that we’re back in antibiotics,” Janet Hammond, head of infectious diseases discovery & translational area in Roche pRED, told us when the alliance with Polyphor was announced.

Roche and Polyphor believe the timing of their alliance is good. Other big pharma companies have cut back in the antimicrobial space, including onetime leader Pfizer, which closed its antibiotic R&D center in Connecticut in 2011, as well as Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Eli Lilly & Co., leaving only a few players, such as AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck & Co.

Meanwhile there is rising alarm globally over the lack of new antimicrobials. Roche says P. aeruginosa accounts for one in every 10 hospital-acquired infections in the U.S. and is listed as one of the six most dangerous drug-resistant microbes.

DOTW Wonders: Where Have the Private Biotech Take-Outs Gone?

We do like a nice, frothy biotech IPO market. But is it coming at the expense of stellar acquisitions of private biotechs? We miss the kind of M&A that got VCs boasting about multiples and sent ripples of excitement through the industry.

So, being the data geeks that we are, that sent us rifling through recent deals. Turns out that there have indeed been fewer decent-sized acquisition of private biotechs. This year there were only 16 worth more than $50 million, down from 26 at this time last year, according to Elsevier’s Strategic Transactions database.

And the really eye-popping deals are largely absent. Only three of this year’s private biotech acquisitions even had the biobuck-aided potential to be worth more than $500 million. Through October 2012, there were at least 10 take-outs that fit that description – although to be fair, a couple of those were of big, private specialty pharmas that were long-past any venture investment. And among this year’s biotech IPO class, 12 out of the 38 already have a market cap of more than $500 million.

Perhaps the longstanding truism that the best biotechs get bought and the rest go public has been turned on its head for a bit. Maybe IPO valuations are so rich that they’re driving up private company comps, giving potential strategic buyers pause.

There is one big biopharma buyer who’s been relentlessly active this year: AstraZeneca . It’s bought three private biotechs so far; all of them among the largest private acquisitions in 2013. Not that this comes as a huge surprise. DOTW wondered in January if then-new AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot would go on a buying spree and expand into earlier stage deals.

Earlier this month, AstraZeneca bought antibody-drug conjugate oncology company Spirogen, which was in Phase II with its lead candidate, for $200 million upfront and up to $240 million in milestones. In August, it bought immune-stimulatory cancer company Amplimmune for $225 million upfront and up to $275 million in milestones.

In June, the big pharma made its biggest buy and the only private biotech acquisition this year potentially worth more than a billion when it acquired Pearl Therapeutics. Terms included $560 million upfront and up to $450 million in clinical and regulatory milestones, with an additional up to $140 million in sales-based milestones. (In total that’s up to $1.15 billion for those of you keeping score at home.) Pearl was a Phase III respiratory disease company.

While AstraZeneca is alone in its level of activity right now, recently industry’s larger companies have whole-heartedly embraced a deal structure that locks up promising early-stage assets at a reasonable price. This, of course, is the “exclusive option to acquire.” One big biopharma in particular has warmed to this approach – doing at least five of this kind of deal with private biotechs in the last couple of years. (Celgene, you know we’re talking about you.)

Celgene’s most recent option to acquire a private biotech was divulged earlier this month when it did a deal alongside a Series A round for PharmAkea Therapeutics, a small molecule cancer and fibrotic disease company that the biopharma seeded with funding last year. This time, Celgene paid $35 million for a three year discovery and development deal, and it also bought an undisclosed equity stake, alongside Bay City Capital, which invested $10 million. Celgene has an exclusive option to buy PharmAkea, which was founded by three execs from fibrotic disease play Amira Pharmaceuticals, which sold to Bristol-Myers Squibb for up to $475 million in 2011.

This week, a similar option-to-acquire deal together with a Series A came along. Sideris Pharmaceuticals garnered a partnership with Novartis worth up to $300 million, which includes the exclusive option to acquire the biotech. It also landed a $32 million Series A round from MPM Capital, Hatteras Venture Partners and Osage University Partners. Sideris is focused on developing drugs to treat transfusion-related iron overload; the partnership and the financing are intended to get its lead candidate through Phase II.

Novartis did another option-to-acquire deal alongside a Series A round with inflammatory and thrombotic diseases company Selexys Pharmaceuticals last year.

We see how an option-to-acquire deal alongside a Series A financing would be attractive. For big biopharmas, it sews up good-looking assets without fully committing, thereby providing more time to wait and see without risking losing out. For VCs, it lines-up a strong potential buyer and helps defray R&D costs from the outset in exchange for a known, possible outcome.  For biotechs, it greatly lessens financing risk, ties it close and early to a partner that can help define how it conducts its trials and gives it a built-in potential exit.

Plus, it takes the vagaries of the IPO and the M&A markets almost entirely out of the equation.  While companies and VCs risk losing out on the tantalizingly highest highs, they also can follow a known path to an exit. And while froth may be fun, it’s not at all stable.

What is entirely reliable is your DOTW team, who has yet again brought you a delightful sampling of this week’s heartiest deals. Quaff deeply of this week’s edition of  . . . .

Mesoblast/Intrexon/Ziopharm: Three partners – Mesoblast, Intrexon and Ziopharm Oncology – will be involved in an oncology drug discovery and development collaboration that could evolve into a joint venture, the firms announced Oct. 23. The initial deal is less of a commitment, however. Under the technology sharing arrangement, the partners will bring their respective expertise to the table to develop new treatments, with a first focus on lung cancer. The team will use Mesoblast’s Mesenchymal Lineage Cells and Intrexon’s RehoSwitch Therapeutic System (RTS) platform to co-develop complex transgene-enabled cell-based treatments. The resulting products should have both tumor targeting characteristics and controlled gene expression. Financial details were undisclosed. The deal is actually a 50/50 collaboration between Mesoblast and Ziopharm because Ziopharm is previously partnered with Intrexon on the technology to design and optimize therapeutic gene expression in the MLCS under a 2011 collaboration. - Jessica Merrill

deCODE/NextCODE: Like any classic Icelandic saga, the story of deCODE Genetics seems endless. The genetic diagnostics company has new life as NextCODE Health, with $15 million in Series A backing from Polaris Partners and ARCH Venture Partners. deCODE was a dot-com era high flier that aimed to mine blood samples from Iceland’s homogeneous population and meticulous record-keeping for clues to the genetic factors of disease. Following a $170 million IPO in 2000 deCODE spent a decade chasing the dream of developing its own drugs. It filed for bankruptcy in late 2009. A consortium of investors led by Polaris and ARCH, who were original deCODE investors and cashed out after the IPO, spent about $14 million to take deCODE private in 2010. Back at the helm, they did away with the drug-development ambitions and turned back to genetic research and diagnostics. They were rewarded when Amgen bought the recapitalized deCODE in 2012 for $415 million in cash up-front. Now, with Amgen focused on applying the deCODE technology to drug discovery, NextCODE has a five-year exclusive license to clinical diagnostics applications. The company says it already has contracts with clinical centers affiliated with Queensland Hospital in Australia, Boston Children’s Hospital in the U.S., Newcastle University in the UK, and Saitama University in Japan. Two top executives from the early days of deCODE, Hannes Smaranson and Jeff Gulcher, have returned to run the company as CEO and president/CSO, respectively. - Alex Lash

Amgen/Roche: As part of its international expansion and to shore up product revenues, Amgen reacquired rights from Roche to Neupogen (filgrastim) and Neulasta (pegfilgrastim) in about 100 markets for an undisclosed amount. Roche had held rights to the pair since 1989, under a license with Kirin-Amgen, a joint venture between Amgen and Kirin Holdings., in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Amgen is working toward building a presence in 75 countries and it will exceed that with this deal. In 2012, Neupogen and Neulasta generated about $200 million in sales in those territories. In the third quarter, Amgen reported $1.1 billion in Neulasta revenues and $466 million in Neupogen revenues. These were up 9% and 50%, respectively, from the same quarter during the prior year. (The big boost for Neupogen was entirely attributable to a $155 million order from the U.S. government during the quarter.) Both are used during chemotherapy to boost white blood cell count, thereby reducing the risk of infection for chemotherapy patients. The deal will become effective Jan.1, 2014. Amgen expects it will start to be accretive in 2014. In places where Amgen doesn’t have a presence, Roche or its distributors will continue to market products for an interim transition period. Kyowa Hakko Kirin will continue to market the drugs in some Asian territories, including China and Japan. - Stacy Lawrence

Alzheon/Bellus Health: A new neurodegenerative disease start-up is being built on the back of a failed Alzheimer’s disease compound. Start-up Alzheon has exclusively licensed a pro-drug of tramiprosate, ALZ-801, from Bellus Health, formerly Neurochem. Tramiprostate completed Phase III clinical testing in 2007 and the data were inconclusive. Alzheon plans to start a Phase II trial in Alzheimer’s disease patients, which it says will be aided by the clinical data and sub-population analyses from the more than 2,000 patients in Phase III studies of tramiprosate. The license includes rights to a family of analogs, along with an associated platform of chemotypes and clinical datasets. Alzheon expects this will provide the company with a drug development platform, as well as clinical and biomarker datasets in this patient population. Beyond ALZ-801, Alzheon expects to build a pipeline that includes additional prodrug candidates from this platform, as well as in-licensed programs.The idea is to take compounds that have demonstrated clinical proof-of-concept and apply improved clinical trial design, informed by existing patient sub-population data, more appropriate clinical endpoints and biomarkers. The newco will be led by Martin Tolar, who is its founder, president and CEO. He has previously headed biotechs including human genome interpretation system company Knome and cancer therapeutics play NormOxys Tolar was also chief business officer at Alzheimer’s-focused CoMentis, which licensed its lead beta-secretase inhibitor, then only in Phase I, to Astellas Pharma AS in 2008 $100 million up front. No financial details of the deal were disclosed; Alzheon hasn’t given any financing details yet. - S.L.

AstraZeneca/Evotec: AstraZeneca and the German drug discovery services company Evotec entered into an agreement Oct. 21 to discover novel targets and compounds with disease-modifying activity for the treatment of chronic renal disease, one of the key research areas for the restructured R&D efforts at the UK multinational. AstraZeneca will fund research on a series of molecules identified by Evotec in a program designed to explore a key mechanism of chronic kidney disease. In return, Evotec has received an undisclosed upfront payment and will receive clinical and regulatory milestones, and additional payments if products are commercialized. Renal diseases such as diabetic nephropathy, end-stage and chronic kidney disease are key targets within AstraZeneca's research effort into cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, one of three core areas for the company and based at its facilities in Molndal, Sweden. The agreement with Evotec comes just three months after AstraZeneca entered into a strategic collaboration with the private U.S. company FibroGen to develop and commercialize that company's FG-4592, a late-stage potential oral therapy for anemia in chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease in selected markets including China and the U.S. Evotec has a number of other big pharma collaborators for its drug discovery services, including with Roche and Boehringer Ingelheim, and a 2010 diabetes collaboration with AstraZeneca's biologics division, MedImmune, extended by the two companies at the start of 2013. - John Davis

Depomed/PDL: As it transforms from a research-oriented company to a product-focused one, Newark, Calif.-based Depomed is planning additional acquisitions to fortify its pain and neurology portfolio. Thanks to the $240.5 million sale of its type 2 diabetes royalties to PDL BioPharma, it will have plenty of cash to spend. Depomed sold milestone and royalty streams for marketed products and pre-approval compounds in the Oct. 21 deal. Most of the value currently lies in escalating royalties from Santarus’s sales of Glumetza (metformin HCL extended-release tablets), which generated $42.8 million in royalties during 2012 and $27.5 million during the first half of 2013. It also includes royalties from Merck’s sales of Janumet XR (sitagliptin and metformin), potential streams from investigational programs in the hands of Boehringer Ingelheim and Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and geographic royalties from LG Life Sciences in Korea and Valeant Pharmaceuticals  in Canada. Depomed built its own sales force to market Gralise (gabapentin) for shingles pain after it reacquired rights to the compound from Abbott Laboratories in 2011, and has since added pain drugs Zipsor (diclofenac potassium) and Lazanda (fentanyl) via acquisition. CEO Jim Schoeneck told conference call participants it would look to buy products already on the market or “those that are beyond clinical risk” at the registration stage. PDL once discovered antibodies, but now reaps royalties from license agreements based on its patents. The last of a key set of patents expires in 2014. If royalties from the new deal reach a total of $481 million, or twice the sale price, PCL and Depomed will split further royalties 50/50. - Paul Bonanos

Roche/Samsung: Samsung Group and Quintiles may have created their Samsung BioLogics joint venture primarily to develop and manufacture biosimilar drugs, but the Incheon, Korea-based drug factory operator is now striking new partnerships as a contract manufacturer for pharmas. An Oct. 22 deal with Roche calls for a long-term manufacturing partnership covering proprietary commercial biologics, which Samsung BioLogics will craft at two local facilities, one of which is still under construction. Financial terms weren’t disclosed and Roche didn’t reveal which medicines Samsung BioLogics will manufacture. It’s the second CMO deal since the summer for Samsung BioLogics, following a 10-year agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb announced in July, covering an unnamed cancer antibody. Since the creation of Samsung BioLogics, Samsung forged a second JV with Biogen Idec in February 2012, creating Samsung Bioepis to develop biosimilars; it has since clarified that Samsung BioLogics will operate a CMO business while Samsung Bioepis will focus on biosimilars. - P.B.

(Thanks to Vault Brewing in Yardley, Penn. for use of their photo of a draft of Rye Pale Ale. It’s a favorite of EBI’s Chris Morrison – who hopes this mention will get him a free pint this weekend.)

Deals Of The Week: Academic Drug-Discovery Alliance Capturing Industry's Notice

Nashville hosted the first annual conference of the Academic Drug Discovery Consortium

It’s become a familiar story in biopharma, as Big Pharma X announces that in the wake of the patent cliff, health care-spending pressures in Europe and diminished returns from internal R&D, it will be forced to cut back on R&D spending and make staff reductions primarily in sales and lab positions.

As the industry retrenches on early drug-discovery work, however, the need for innovation has not diminished and so the private sector frequently looks more and more to the academy for early research breakthroughs that might translate into therapies that will bolster the quarterly earnings reports a decade from now. In an effort to take advantage of that trend, some of the more forward-thinking university-based drug-discovery outfits in the U.S. have banded together to create a consortium they hope will facilitate and ease partnerships between academic institutions and the biopharmaceutical industry.

The brainchild of a meeting in Baltimore two autumns ago, the Academic Drug Discovery Consortium was more or less dreamed up by Barbara Slusher, director of the Translational Program at the Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and Jeffrey Conn, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery, with input from three other founding institutions: University of North Carolina, Harvard University and University of California, San Francisco.

But in a relatively short time, ADDC’s membership has grown to 83 institutions, including six outside the U.S., and more than 550 individual members. And, just as importantly, big pharma has taken notice.

“They started out with two groups, Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins, and now they have 83 members,” said Bruce Harris, Roche’s director of academic alliances and an attendee and speaker at ADDC’s first annual conference Oct. 9-11 in Nashville.” All of these institutions are trying to incorporate drug discovery and translate some of the biological discoveries occurring in their laboratories into drug-discovery projects and, if you think about it, that’s an incredible resource for the industry and the early portion of our pipelines.”

It is a necessary development as well. “The area I work in, CNS, probably has been hit the hardest because it’s a risk area where companies are decreasing their internal efforts and several companies have just gotten out (altogether),” said Slusher, co-founder and president of ADDC.

She and Harris both point to an increased government funding interest in translational research that has occurred more or less in tandem with private industry’s cutbacks in discovery work. Specifically, they site the NIH Roadmap efforts undertaken during the tenure of former NIH Director Elias Zerhouni. “This has been a major change in the pharmaceutical industry,” Slusher said. “But as pharma has been decreasing some of its internal efforts, simultaneously what you see is NIH increasing its interest in activities in discovery and translation.”

While overall NIH funding has been roughly flat in recent years, she noted, funding for its National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) was increased by 11% for federal fiscal year 2013.

ADDC also reflects the exponential growth taking place in academic drug discovery. There were six U.S. academic institutions performing drug-discovery research in 1990, a number that had nearly tripled as of a decade ago. Now, there are more than 100 such units, and 78 of them have membership in ADDC, Slusher pointed out.

In addition to its domestic members, ADDC also has drawn the support of six international research outfits – the Centre of Applied Medical Research at the University of Navarra in Spain, the Karolinska Institute’s Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden, the genetic engineering and biotechnology labs at Shaqra University in Saudi Arabia, the Platform of Chemical Biology and ADME at the University of Strasbourg in France, the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre and Cancer Research UK.

While ADDC has a focus on facilitating partnerships with the private sector, Harris thinks another important role it can play is fostering research efforts across national borders. “I could easily see these U.S.-based academic institutions collaborating on drug-discovery work with their European colleagues,” he said. “Science is global and so are economies, so for them to work together without national boundaries is just natural.”

As Roche searches for programs and assets to invest in at the academic level, Harris said his emphasis will be on the company’s therapeutic areas of focus – oncology, neuroscience and infectious disease. Those priorities dovetail well with what is occurring in U.S. academic research – of the ADDC centers, 73% say they work in oncology, 65% in infectious disease, 63% in neurological disorders and 45% in immunology.

One of ADDC’s initial goals is to create a searchable database of the projects being undertaken by member institutions. Both institutional and individual membership in ADDC is free, meaning this should be a significant resource for academic alliance seekers, like Roche’s Harris. (The organization also is not planning to take a cut from members’ tech transfer deals as a funding mechanism. Instead, it has lined up more than 20 biopharma and service provider firms to sponsor ADDC activities so far, Slusher said.)

Meanwhile, ADDC has no plans, in the near term at least, to serve as a central negotiating point for tech transfer deals or to develop uniform documents and practices for such transactions. Harris said right now that activity seems neither necessary nor terribly feasible.

“I’m not sure that it would be useful to standardize all of the legal documents and arrangements because each university has its own mission within a given state or [based upon] who is supporting it,” Harris added. “They have to go by their own regulations, so having a common set of documents across multiple tech transfer offices at U.S. universities would be a monumental challenge, I think, and probably expensive from a legal point of view.”

And while we await a slew of deals between ADDC member institutions and the biopharma industry, we present this week’s roundup of ....

MedImmune/Spirogen/ADC Therapeutics: AstraZeneca’s biologics unit MedImmune will expand its early oncology pipeline with a new platform to make potent antibody-drug conjugates through the acquisition of U.K.-based Spirogen. Britain’s second-biggest drug maker said it was acquiring privately held Spirogen Oct. 15, paying up $200 million upfront and with another $240 million in potential earn-outs based on predefined milestones for Spirogen’s ADC technology, which has the potential to directly target cancer tumors while protecting healthy cells. Spirogen has developed a novel class of cytotoxic “warheads” based on pyrrolobenzodiazepine (PBDs), which are DNA minor-grove binding agents that bind to specific sites of DNA in cancer cells, according to MedImmune. This blocks the cell division and growth without distorting the DNA helix of cancer cells, which potentially could prevent the emergence of drug resistance. AstraZeneca is in the midst of a concerted push in oncology under the direction of CEO Pascal Soriot, who has revamped the company’s R&D direction over the past year and selected oncology as one of three focal therapeutic areas for the company. MedImmune now is focused on two key areas in oncology development – ADCs and immune-mediated cancer therapy – and says the acquisition of Spirogen fits that strategy perfectly. In connection with the deal, AstraZeneca simultaneously announced a coinciding agreement with Swiss-based ADC Therapeutics, which has a licensing agreement with Spirogen. Under that arrangement AstraZeneca will pay $20 million to take an equity investment in the company. The investment will be matched by Auven Therapeutics, the majority shareholder in both ADC Therapeutics and Spirogen. AstraZeneca will collaborate with ADC Therapeutics to develop two programs from a defined list and pay an undisclosed upfront payment and development milestones. ADC Therapeutics will have a profit-sharing arrangement and gets the option to co-promote one of the products in the U.S. The products to be developed using Spirogen’s technology are preclinical assets, so the latest deal will not yield commercially viable new medicines for several years. It is not yet clear when the products could move forward into clinical tests. Spirogen has been developing its PBD technology for more than 10 years, including a standalone PBD agent in a Phase II study in acute myeloid leukemia. Its business model has been to partner its technology with pharma and biotech for use in the development of novel drugs. It has a number of industry collaborations, including collaborations with Genmab in June 2013, Genentech in 2011 and with ADC Therapeutics announced in 2012. - Sten Stovall

AstraZeneca/Taris Biomedical: Bladder-disease focused Taris Biomedical signed a research agreement with AstraZeneca Oct. 16 to work on novel treatments for bladder cancer. No financial details were disclosed, but the pharma gets an option to license any products resulting from the collaboration. The partnership will involve using Taris’ proprietary delivery platform in combination with targeted bladder cancer drugs developed by AstraZeneca. The Lexington, Mass.-based biotech says its technology involves a soft and flexible device that is deployed into and retrieved from the patient’s bladder “using standard urological office procedures.” The technology is designed to provide continuous local delivery of a therapeutic agent to the bladder for days or weeks. “Their novel technology has the potential to enable the delivery of the right drugs to the tumor tissue in the right concentration and over a prolonged period,” said Susan Galbraith, head of AstraZeneca’s Oncology Innovative Medicines Unit in a release. “This could combine the ability to target the right tissue – the tumor – with the right genetically targeted therapy and therefore represent a step change in the treatment of this disease.” Taris is a clinical-stage firm focused on developing therapies for bladder cancer, overactive bladder and interstitial cystitis. Its lead candidate, LiRIS, is in Phase II in interstitial cystitis. In April, the biotech raised $12.5 million in a Series C round funded by returning investors Flagship Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners, Polaris Partners and Third Rock Ventures. - Joseph Haas

AmpliPhi Biosciences/University of Leicester: U.S. company AmpliPhi BioSciences announced an agreement Oct. 17 with a British academic group that has succeeded in identifying and characterizing bacteriophage (“phage”) that kill pathogenic strains of Clostridium difficile, a major cause of hospital-acquired severe diarrhea and vomiting. The University of Leicester  researchers will collaborate with AmpliPhi and another U.K. research team at the University of Glasgow on using the “bacteria-eating viruses” for clinical applications, with AmpliPhi funding the research, making milestone payments and paying royalties on any eventual products sales. In return, AmpliPhi receives rights to patents and intellectual property covering the Clostridium difficile-targeted phage research.
In a September 2013 report, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention called C difficile an urgent threat, causing 250,000 infections every year in the U.S. AmpliPhi believes it is conducting the only phage-based development program for this critical condition. Phage could yield ideal candidates for treating gastrointestinal infections, as they infect and kill a specific strain or species of bacteria, and should not affect beneficial gut bacteria. The research agreement is the third by AmpliPhi in the past six months, having linked up previously with the synthetic biology company Intrexon and the U.S Army. AmpliPhi expects its first therapeutic phage-based product, targeting Staphylococcus aureus and developed in collaboration with the U.S. military, to enter clinical trials next year. AmpliPhi is headquartered in Richmond, Va., but has operations in Colworth, U.K., and Sydney, Australia. - John Davis

Zydus Cadila/Pieris: India’s Zydus Cadila is teaming with Germany’s Pieris to develop and commercialize multiple novel protein therapeutics derived from the anticalin protein molecule. In an Oct. 16 announcement, the companies said the partnership would combine Pieris capabilities in drug discovery and early drug development with Zydus’ expertise in regulatory affairs and development and manufacturing of biologics. No financial terms were disclosed, but the companies said in a release that they will share licensing revenues under mutually agreed-upon terms. The collaboration is intended to develop candidates to proof-of-concept and then seek out-licensing in Pieris’ commercial territories. The most advanced program under the partnership is PRS-110, an anticalin protein specific for c-MET, a target that has been validated in a broad spectrum of tumor types. The candidate is a pure antagonist due to monovalent target engagement and in animal models has demonstrated the ability to inhibit ligand-dependent and –independent c-MET activity. - J.A.H.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Deals of the Week: Prime Time For Parkinson's

Parkinson’s disease is about to receive plenty of media attention. Most of that will come as NBC’s The Michael J. Fox Show makes its debut Sept. 26, returning its star to center stage in a sitcom that deals with neurodegenerative disease. But here at Deals of the Week, we’re pointing our camera at a small but potentially influential Big Pharma bet on a company whose early progress in Parkinson’s is funded by the foundation that bears Fox’s name.

Biogen Idec and Amicus Therapeutics revealed a tie-up this week that will fund continued research on the link between the glucocerebrosidase, or GCase, enzyme and Parkinson’s. Known primarily for its research in rare lysosomal disorders such as Fabry disease and Pompe disease, Amicus specializes in repairing lysosomal enzyme function related to protein instability and misfolding. There’s a connection between those disorders and Parkinson’s: Scientists have known since the late 1990s about a connection between Gaucher disease, another lysosomal storage disorder, and Parkinson’s; mutations in the GBA1 gene cause Gaucher, and are a known risk factor for Parkinson’s. And indeed, Amicus’s continued research on a first-generation Gaucher product showed early promise in treating Parkinson’s as well.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation, one of the best-known Parkinson’s charities, has funded preclinical research on Amicus’s AT3375 since 2006. Beginning with a predecessor compound, AT2101, Cranbury, N.J.-based Amicus learned that pharmacological chaperones could be used to stimulate GCase activity, prevent buildup of alpha-synuclein – a protein associated with Parkinson’s – in mice’s brains, and improve motor function. That led to the development of AT3375, a more potent and selective next-generation product, and a series of MJFF grants.

The Biogen Idec deal includes discovery, development and commercialization of new molecules that address GCase activity. The companies didn’t disclose specific terms, but said Biogen Idec will own the candidates, fund the projects, and reimburse Amicus for its employees’ time, while Amicus can receive milestone payments and “modest” royalties if a product succeeds in the clinic and is commercialized.

It’s the latest among several Parkinson’s deals for Biogen Idec, including its 2010 purchase of an alpha-synuclein-targeting compound from Neurimmune Holdings. The pharma has also invested in neurodegeneration start-up Knopp Biosciences, most recently in November 2012.

Overall, the Parkinson’s field is still dominated by generic drugs. In light of some recent discoveries, it's possible that both symptomatic and disease-modifying treatments could reach the market within several years, though none will imminently. The clinical failure of Merck’s Phase III candidate preladenant in May raised some doubts about one class, adenosine A2A agonists.

But if the Biogen/Amicus deal is a modest step forward, it’s still another sign that a pharma will commit capital to an early-stage Parkinson’s project with a lot yet to prove. Other recent alliances include a couple of university deals. AstraZeneca partnered with Tufts University in a broader neuroscience pact in July. And last year, Bristol-Myers Squibb licensed a group of metabotropic glutamate receptor 4 modulators from Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery. Plus, watch for coverage of Civitas Therapeutics’s latest venture funding, another bet on Parkinson’s disease that’s likely to be featured in Deals of the Week’s cousin, Financings of the Fortnight, next week. --Paul Bonanos

Which other deals are ready for prime time? We'll do our best Don Pardo voice to introduce...

Biogen Idec/Isis: Biogen has been an active dealmaker lately, and struck another partnership with a familiar ally. In a move that capitalizes on the already-existing relationship, Biogen teamed with Isis Pharmaceuticals for a fourth partnership – one that broadens their discovery work in antisense technology and raises the stakes financially. The two companies announced what Isis refers to as ‘Biogen 4’ on Sept. 9. The broad, six-year strategic research collaboration will use Isis’s antisense technology to discover and advance compounds that treat neurological conditions. Biogen will pay $100 million upfront – the payment will be reflected in its third quarter R&D expenses – and Isis is eligible to receive as much $220 million in milestone payments, as well as royalties and clinical trial expenses. Once targets are validated the team can choose to utilize Isis’ antisense technology or opt to develop a small molecule or biologic. Should antisense be chosen, Isis will receive an additional $10 million milestone payment and have the opportunity to earn an additional $250 million in pre-commercial milestone payments. If not, Isis still will receive a $5 million milestone and have the potential for another $85 million in milestones. The strategic relationship builds on three earlier collaborations inked in the last two years, including one around a Phase II program to develop a treatment for spinal muscular atrophy. –Lisa LaMotta 

Merck/AstraZeneca: AstraZeneca’s in-licensing of Merck's MK-1775 for study in certain types of ovarian cancer is the UK drug maker’s latest move to build a dynamic oncology portfolio and highlights its keen focus on the DNA damage response area and efforts to induce cancer cell death. Under the Sept. 11 deal, Merck will receive $50 million upfront, and will be eligible for undisclosed development and regulatory milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties. MK-1775 is currently in Phase IIa clinical studies in combination with standard of care therapies for treating patients with P53-deficient ovarian cancer. WEE1 helps to regulate the cell-division cycle and WEE1 inhibitor MK-1775 is designed to cause certain tumor cells to divide without undergoing the normal DNA repair processes, ultimately leading to cell death. For AstraZeneca, the addition of WEE1 inhibitor MK-1775 gives it yet another agent that targets tumor-specific DNA damage response dependencies, such PARP inhibitor olaparib and first-in-class AZD6738. Preclinical evidence suggests that MK-1775 can enhance anti-tumor properties in conjunction with DNA damage-inducing chemotherapy agents.  AstraZeneca intends to study the compound in a range of solid tumor cancer types as part of a concerted push in oncology, part of a larger turn-around plan. Merck will continue to focus on its later stage oncology candidates, MK-3475 and vintafolide. In the spring, FDA granted breakthrough status to MK-3475, or lambrolizumab, a PD-1 specific monoclonal antibody for the treatment of advanced malignancy. Vintafolide is a treatment for a variety of tumor types expressing folate receptors, including ovarian and lung cancers, which Merck licensed from Endocyte Inc. in April 2012. It is paired with a radio-labeled imagingn agent to identify high-responding patients whose tumors express folate receptors. – Sten Stovall

Roche/Inovio: Roche announced a deal Sept. 10 to license two preclinical assets, one of which will be used as a potential combination with other cancer immunotherapy candidates in the Swiss pharma’s pipeline. Its partner, Inovio Pharmaceuticals gets $10 million upfront in exchange for rights to INO-5150 for prostate cancer and INO-1800 for hepatitis B, as well rights to use an electroporation delivery technology for the two candidates. Both candidates are multi-antigen DNA immunotherapies well into preclinical work. Inovio CEO Joseph Kim said ‘5150, which targets both prostate-specific antigen and prostate-specific membrane antigen, could move into clinical development before the end of the year. In a release, Roche said it plans to use ‘5150 in combination with cancer immunotherapies in its pipeline in hopes of developing next-generation approaches to treating a variety of cancers. Roche also gets an option to license additional back-up vaccine candidates that Inovio will discover and develop, as well as an exclusive license for use of the biotech’s Cellectra electroporation technology in the development of ‘5150 and ‘1800. In addition to the upfront payment, Roche also will finance the remaining preclinical work for the two candidates. Inovio could earn development and commercial milestones up to $412.5 million for the two programs and up to double-digit tiered royalties on product sales. – Joseph Haas

Cellceutix/PolyMedix: One company’s loss may be another’s gain. In this case, Cellceutix is taking advantage of PolyMedix’s bankruptcy to acquire the company’s assets at an affordable price and strengthen its own portfolio. Cellceutix said Sept. 9 it will acquire the Phase II antibiotic brilacidin and eight other compounds previously in development at PolyMedix for $2.1 million in cash and 1.4 million shares of Cellceutix stock, in a deal orchestrated in bankruptcy court. Financially distressed PolyMedix filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection April 1, after it ran into trouble in May 2012 while testing a different product, PMX-60056, in development for reversing the anticoagulant activity of unfractionated heparin in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention procedures. Brilacidin will be Cellceutix’s latest-stage compound in clinical development, and the company said it is anxious to begin Phase III trials testing the first-in-class defensin mimetic. The question now for Cellceutix is if it will be able to succeed where PolyMedix failed and turn brilacidin and other molecules in the portfolio into valuable late-stage drugs. - Jessica Merrill

GSK/Suntory: By arranging the sale of its iconic drink brands Lucozade and Ribena to Suntory Beverage & Food of Japan for net proceeds of £1.3 billion ($2.11 billion), GlaxoSmithKline has disposed of two valuable non-core assets, freeing itself to focus on its late-stage drug and vaccine pipeline. The Sept. 9 divestment had been expected after GSK in April said it had put Lucozade and Ribena on the auction block. Introduced in 1927 and 1937 respectively, the two drinks deliver strong cash flow and together generate annual sales of around £600 million ($915 million). Both drinks are well-loved in Glaxo’s home country, but lack global reach, especially in the emerging markets that are now becoming the focus of the British drugmaker's consumer health business. Proceeds from the sale will be used to reduce GSK’s debt. SBF, the number 4 supplier of soft drinks globally in 2012, will get global rights to the two brands and GSK’s Coleford, UK, manufacturing site in the Forest of Dean. Most employees at the site and those working on Lucozade and Ribena in commercial and R&D functions will transfer to SBF. In Nigeria, GSK will continue to manufacture and distribute Lucozade and Ribena under license. The deal is part of a number of housekeeping moves set in motion early in 2013 by GSK’s chief executive Andrew Witty. They include hiving off some 50 medicines, including stomach acid treatment Zantac (ranitidine), migraine medication Imitrex (sumatriptan) and anti-nausea treatment Zofran (ondansetron), into a separate global established products portfolio. - S.S.

Bayer/Broad Institute: MIT and Harvard-backed cancer research center The Eli & Edythe L. Broad Institute turns 10 this year, and is solidifying its status as a key partner for pharmas. Its latest ally is Bayer: the German giant inked a five-year oncogenomics deal under which the pair will attempt to discover new drugs that target genomic alterations selectively. The two didn’t release financial terms of the Sept. 10 deal, but the early-stage collaboration gives Bayer an exclusive option to license the compounds discovered jointly, at the pre-clinical stage. Bayer and the Broad Institute will share their compound libraries, screening platforms, and expertise, and establish a joint steering committee to decide which candidates to pursue. Established in 2003 with a $200 million gift, the Broad Institute was enlarged in 2008 when its namesake benefactors donated another $400 million. The Cambridge, Mass.-based Institute struck a two-year antibiotics research deal with AstraZeneca in September 2012, and a multi-year agreement with Roche to explore repurposed drugs in December 2012. It also granted NanoString Technologies Inc. rights to a genetic signature implicated in liver disorders, invented by Broad Institute CSO Todd Golub, in April. – P.B.