Through a spate of dealmaking over the past few years, Sanofi has made its intentions in the gene and cell therapy field clear. The company seems uninterested in hard-to-manufacture treatments that consist of individual patient cells genetically modified outside the body, instead favoring ones meant to be used “off the shelf.”
In 2020, for instance, the French drugmaker bought Kiadis Pharma, which is working on more convenient cell treatments for cancer. Sanofi acquired another off-the-shelf cell therapy developer, Tidal Therapeutics, the following year, and envisions its recent investments in messenger RNA technology as aiding in the effort.
In doing so, Sanofi isn’t just bypassing the first generation of so-called CAR-T therapies, which are powerful tools against certain blood cancers but are limited by their complexity. It’s also casting aside outside-the-body treatments for genetic diseases, a class that includes drugs from CRISPR Therapeutics and Bluebird bio that have shown considerable promise treating blood diseases like beta thalassemia and sickle cell. READ MORE
By Ben Fidler
Source: biopharmadive.com
The Food and Drug Administration’s top scientist Namandjé Bumpus will assume the role of principal deputy commissioner when longtime agency leader Janet Woodcock retires from that role in early 2024, according to an announcement Thursday.
US biopharma AbbVie has agreed to acquire ImmunoGen in a deal which values the company at about $10.1 billion and gives AbbVie access to flagship cancer therapy Elahere (mirvetuximab soravtansine-gynx), a first-in-class antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) approved for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (PROC), as well as a pipeline of promising next-generation ADCs.
EUROAPI today announced the appointment of David Seignolle as Chief Operating Officer, succeeding Eric Berger, and Marion Santin as Chief Legal, Compliance, and IP Officer, both joining the company’s Executive Committee. In his new role, David Seignolle will lead the transformation of the Industrial Operations organization.
