Sanofi has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the entire share capital of Kiadis Pharma in a deal valued at approximately €308m ($359m).
Under the agreement, Sanofi will offer €5.45 per share to Kiadis Pharma, a clinical-stage company developing cell-based immunotherapy products.
The acquisition will give Sanofi full control of next-generation natural killer (K-NK) cell platform and pipeline of cell-based cancer immune-therapeutics and infectious disease treatments.
The K-NK cell platform derives from allogeneic or ‘off-the-shelf’ NK cells from a healthy donor and these cells hunt for malignant cancer cells.
It can potentially make products rapidly and economically available for a broad range of indications.
Under the deal, Kiadis will develop NK cell-based medicines alone or with Sanofi’s existing platforms.
Furthermore, the research, development and commercial expertise of Sanofi will be leveraged to advance Kiadis’ pipeline that includes NK cell-based medicines.
Sanofi Research & Development global head John Reed said: “We believe the Kiadis ‘off the shelf’ K-NK cell technology platform will have broad application against liquid and solid tumours, and create synergies with Sanofi’s emerging immuno-oncology pipeline, providing opportunities for us to pursue potential best-in-disease approaches.”
On completion of the public offer, Sanofi will provide the resources and capabilities needed for boosting the development of Kiadis’ programmes.
Kiadis’ pipeline of NK cell therapies includes K-NK002, K-NK003 and KNK-ID-101.
KNK-ID-101 is a programme analysing the properties of K-NK cells and their suitability to fight SARS-CoV-2. It will also analyse whether the cells can be used as a post-exposure pre-emptive therapy for Covid-19 in high-risk patients.
The company anticipates initiating a Phase I / IIa trial evaluating the use of K-NK cells to treat covid-19 patients with government grant funding.
In July, the company licensed Kiadis’ pre-clinical K-NK004 programme for potential combination for multiple myeloma.
by Pharmeceutical-technology.com
Source: pharmaceutical-technology.com
A monkeypox outbreak is emerging in the U.S. and Europe, and at least one country is amping up countermeasure preparedness. Bavarian Nordic has secured a contract with an unnamed European country to supply its smallpox vaccine, called Imvanex in Europe, in response to the emergence of monkeypox cases, the Danish company said Thursday.
Moderna’s recent chief financial officer debacle—in which Jorge Gomez departed on his second day on the job—raised questions about the company’s hiring process given its rush to global biopharma prominence. The most obvious one: How was it possible for Gomez to be hired when he was under investigation by his previous employer, Dentsply Sirona of Charlotte, N.C.
Merck & Co. is plucking a cancer project from the branch of Chinese-based Kelun Pharmaceutical for up to $1.4 billion, but details from the New Jersey-based Big Pharma have been hard to come by. The deal, first disclosed Monday on the Shenzhen stock exchange, has Merck handing over $47 million in upfront cash in exchange for ex-China rights to a “macromolecular tumor project.”
