Sanofi is linking arms with BioNTech under multiyear exclusive collaboration and license agreement targeting the discovery and development of up to five new cancer immunotherapies containing a mix of messenger RNAs, that could bring more than $1.5 billion to the latter’s books.
Sanofi is paying BioNTech $60 million in upfront and near-term milestone payments for rights to the candidates based on the latter’s technology, but the firm could receive over $300 million more in development, regulatory and commercial milestones and other payments, as well as sales-based royalties, for each product.
Under the terms of the deal, BioNTech also holds the option to co-develop and co-commercialise two of the five mRNA therapeutics products with Sanofi in the European Union and the US.
“The collaboration with Sanofi is groundbreaking: through using our broad suite of mRNA technologies and extensive tumor immunology understanding, it will allow us to develop a completely new class of cancer immune-therapeutics with Sanofi, which we believe will have a profound and deep impact on the treatment of cancer,” said BioNTech chief executive Ugur Sahin, commenting on the move.
Source: Pharma Times
Airnov provides critical healthcare industries with high-quality, controlled atmosphere packaging, to protect their products from moisture and oxygen. The business has manufacturing facilities in the USA, France, China and India and employs around 700 people.
Takeda of Japan has partnered with Hong Kong-based Hutchmed, gaining the commercial rights to colorectal cancer drug fruquintinib outside of China for $400 million up front, plus $730 million in potential milestone payments. Takeda also will help develop fruquintinib, which can be applied to subtypes of refractory metastatic colorectal cancer, regardless of biomarker status, the companies said.
On April 3, Scangos, who’s been chief executive officer at Vir since the start of 2017, will hand over the reins to Marianne De Backer, Ph.D. De Backer comes over from Bayer, where she currently heads up pharmaceutical strategy, business development and licensing. Alongside her CEO appointment, De Backer is set to join Vir’s board of directors, the company said Wednesday.
