Merck is spending €115 million ($137 million) up front and up to €349 million in future payments to buy out German biotech Rigontec.
The Munich, Germany-based company is at work on accessing the retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) pathway, part of the innate immune system, as a new approach in cancer immunotherapy.
The idea is to induce both immediate and long-term antitumor immunity; its leading candidate, RGT100, is in early clinical trials in patients with various tumors. More details on targets and financials were not given.
The early-stage company was founded back in 2014 as a spinout of the University Bonn in Germany, raising nearly €30 million in that time from a host of VCs, including Boehringer’s Venture Fund, Forbion Capital Partners, High-Tech Gründerfonds, Wellington Partners Life Sciences and MP Healthcare Venture Management.
Though not on the scale of Gilead’s recent $11.9 billion buyout of CAR-T biotech Kite Pharma, Merck hopes this can add to its pipeline of cancer meds in a broader effort to shore up its future in I-O, coming after the commercial success of its checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda, which now has a series of FDA-approved uses across a number of cancers.
By Ben Adams
Source: Fierce Biotech
CureVac and the University of Texas’s MD Anderson Cancer Center have announced a co-development and licensing agreement to develop novel messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based cancer vaccines. The strategic collaboration will focus on the development of differentiated cancer vaccine candidates in selected haematological and solid tumour indications with high unmet medical needs.
FUJIFILM Corporation is planning to invest $1.2 billion to expand the planned FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina, US. This news follows the organisation’s announcement of a $2 billion investment in the facility in March 2021. This additional financial boost totals the investment to over $3.2 billion, FUJIFILM confirmed.
Sanofi’s global restructuring and downsizing is now fully underway, with layoffs stretching to the company’s Belgian offices. Belgian newspaper De Tijd reports that 67 employees have been laid off at a site in Ghent and 32 jobs are on the chopping block at Sanofi’s Belgium HQ in Diegem.
