Novo is best known for the insulins and other diabetes medicines its scientists spent years developing and refining. Deals for drugs invented outside its laboratories are relatively rare, as are agreements focused on diseases other than the metabolic condition.
But Novo has shown an interest in expanding its research into blood disease and cardiovascular treatments, mounting a failed bid for the Belgian drugmaker Ablynx in 2018 and, more recently, acquiring Corvidia Therapeutics and its antibody drug for heart disease.
The deal for Prothena’s PRX004, though a bit further afield, appears to fit into that pattern, giving Novo a mid-stage therapy for a disease that’s receiving more and more attention from drugmakers. READ MORE
By Ned Pagliarulo
Source: biopharmadive.com
UCB (Euronext: UCB) and Zogenix (NASDAQ: ZGNX) announced that the companies have entered into a definitive agreement under which UCB would acquire Zogenix, Inc., a global biopharmaceutical company commercializing and developing therapies for rare diseases.
argenx SE, a global immunology company committed to improving the lives of people suffering from severe autoimmune diseases, announced that Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) has approved VYVGART™ (efgartigimod alfa) intravenous infusion for the treatment of adult patients with generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG) who do not have sufficient response to steroids or non-steroidal immunosuppressive therapies (ISTs).
GSK has rejected three offers from Unilever to buy GSK’s consumer health unit, the company said Saturday. The latest offer from the fellow U.K. consumer goods giant, received Dec. 20 for a total value of 50 billion pounds ($68 billion), “fundamentally undervalued” the business and its prospects, GSK said.
