Deals Of The Week Takes Action

It was quiet on the deal making front as major news this week was of a regulatory or clinical nature. Despite a three-month delay, GlaxoSmithKline and Human Genome Sciences earned a BlyS-fully easy approval March 9 for Benlysta (belimumab), the first new lupus treatment in 56 years. That the approval didn’t come with a risk mitigation scheme or onerous labeling shows yet again that regulators are treading lightly in arenas where good therapeutic options are lacking. (Just practice the phrase "unmet medical need" three times fast.)

The good news about Benlysta was likely a comforting balm for GSK – or at least distracted the big pharma’s investors. Less than 48 hours later, the company and its partner Tolerx announced disappointing results for a Phase III trial of their humanized anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody for Type 1 diabetes, otelixizumab. Otelixizumab’s failure wasn’t entirely unexpected: a similar drug from Eli Lilly (remember them?) and MacroGenics called teplizumab has also floundered in the clinic.

While otelixizumab's results haven't yet sparked a “no-deal”, it wouldn’t be surprising if GSK were to decide the DEFEND-1 data made its 2007 agreement with indefensible. For the moment, the big pharma is investigating additional dosing regimens of the drug and has halted recruitment in a separate clinical trial.

Of course, GSK has to share the late-stage failure spotlight with Sanofi-Aventis and its partner Regeneron, who revealed this week that their non-small cell lung cancer drug aflibercept failed to increase overall survival time relative to comparator docetaxel in a Phase III study. The announcement is a definite setback for the French pharma, which has spent the past two years rebuilding its oncology business with a greater emphasis on targeted therapeutics and biologics.

Of course, the failure also raises questions about Sanofi’s ability to meet its revenue goals via its internal pipeline, illustrating yet again that to scale its 2013 patent cliff, the drug maker had few options but to consider a sizeable acquisition on the order of Genzyme. (If anyone's still curious about that M&A, we'll have more in the c oming March IN VIVO.)

Aside from clinical setbacks, this week’s deal-making highlights feature Japanese pharmas, academic collaborations and the importance of reprofiling existing compounds to identify potential new uses. Drumroll, please...

Eisai/Epizyme: Privately-held Epizyme’s March 10 agreement with Eisai is the biotech’s second big pharma partnership of the year, following a January tie-up with GlaxoSmithKline. But Epizyme CEO Robert Gould is eager to stress that the two deals are different and serve separate parts of his firm’s business strategy. The deal with Eisai centers around EZH2, a preclinical epigenetic enzyme expected to yield treatments for lymphoma and other cancers in genetically defined patients. As part of the deal, Epizyme will receive $6 million upfront and can earn up to $200 million in milestones and up to double-digit royalties. The Japanese pharma also will cover 100% of R&D costs through human proof-of-concept, at which point Epizyme can opt in to share development and U.S. commercialization costs and profits. In contrast, the GSK deal centered on a defined but undisclosed package of histone methyltransferases. GSK paid $20 million upfront with the potential for up to $630 million in milestones plus double-digit royalties. That deal is basically a “handover” of the related assets to GSK, whereas the Eisai deal involves joint decision-making with the possibility of Epizyme taking on the role of full partner, says Gould. If Epizyme elects to opt in after proof-of-concept, it would co-commercialize the resulting drug in the U.S., while Eisai would retain development and commercial rights for the rest of the world.--Joseph Haas

AstraZeneca/Galderma: AZ on March 7 signed up global dermatology giant Galderma to reprofile some of its assets to treat skin diseases such as psoriasis, acne and atopic dermatitis. The five-year R&D agreement, for which financials weren’t disclosed, sees the French-based biotech gain access to several already-identified AZ compounds from within the big pharma’s core therapy areas, including oncology, inflammation and central nervous system. The deal is both a sign of the times, and a reminder of how AstraZeneca stands apart from some of its big pharma peers. It’s another example of large drug firms’ push to squeeze out all the value they can from their assets, especially in non-core therapy areas. This is the second reprofiling alliance AZ has struck: in 2009 it signed a similar agreement with Alcon in ophthalmology. Under terms of that deal, should Alcon discover potentially interesting compounds, it can license them on a case-by-case basis, with AZ eligible for regulatory milestones and royalties. The Galderma tie-up also emphasizes AZ’s ‘pure-play’ strategy and its preference to team up with recognized experts in areas it considers outside its expertise. That’s in contrast to companies like GlaxoSmithKline, which paid $3.6 billion in 2009 to buy dermatology player Stiefel, creating its own specialist business with attractive, risk-mitigating trimmings including OTC and aesthetic portfolios. Not that dermatology is, strictly speaking, a new opportunity for either GSK or AZ: both used to have their own skin-care businesses, in the days before dermatology went out of fashion. --Melanie Senior

Evotec/Harvard: It ain't just big pharma heading back to school. Even biotechs are looking for tie-ups with universities these days. German small-molecule drug discovery company Evotec announced a deal this week with Harvard University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to investigate new therapies for diabetes, specifically in the area of beta cell replication. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Harvard professor Doug Melton will be the principal investigator, working alongside Chevy Chase, Md.-based nonprofit HHMI and the German pharma. The move deepens Evotec’s commitment to diabetes, following a deal last summer to acquire metabolic disorders specialist DeveloGen. That company, now operating as an Evotec subsidiary, has multiple projects underway, including insulin sensitizers and drugs that prevent destruction of existing pancreatic cells as well as compounds that induce beta cell regeneration. Its immune-modulating drug DiaPep277, which protects pancreatic cells, is in Phase III trials, and was partnered with Andromeda prior to the acquisition. DeveloGen also has an ongoing discovery partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim. Evotec says the goal of its new arrangement with Harvard and HHMI is to create orally available small-molecule drugs that trigger or support beta cell regeneration. --Paul Bonanos

Yakult Honsha/Aeterna Zentaris: Behold another sign that regional deal-making is alive and well. On March 9, came news that Aeterna Zentaris, a Canadian company specializing in oncology therapies, has partnered Japanese rights to its lead oncologic, perifosine, for $8.3 million upfront and another $60.9 million in clinical and regulatory milestone payments. Perifosine is a novel oral medicine that inhibits Akt activation in the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway, which is associated with programmed cell death, cell growth and cell survival. Phase III trials in colorectal cancer and multiple myeloma are ongoing in the U.S. and EU.The deal with Yakult Honsha, a diversified Japanese player that develops foods, beverages and cosmetics in addition to pharmaceuticals, represents the third time Aeterna has sliced up rights to perifosine. In 2002, it licensed North American rights to the molecule, in Phase I studies at the time, to privately held Access Oncology for at least $18 million. (Those rights transferred to Keryx Biopharmaceuticals when it purchased Access Oncology two years later.) Aeterna also cleaved off Korean rights to the molecule, dealing them to Handok. In general, blocking this particular cellular cascade is an area of great interest to pharmas looking to extend their oncology franchises, with developers of inhibitors specifically targetting PI3K striking rich deals. (Think Gilead/Calistoga or Sanofi-Aventis/Exelixis.) Deal terms for Akt inhibitors don’t appear to be as pricey based on Elsevier’s Strategic Transcations database. Of course, because Aeterna Zentaris out-licensed the highly valuable North American rights to perifosine at Phase I, it’s also limited the upfront potential dollars it could receive, demonstrating the trade-offs companies make when partnering at such an early stage. --EFL

Image courtesy of flickrer ideowl used with permission through a creative commons license.