While teplizumab has the potential to be a new type of diabetes medicine, it’s had a checkered past, and the contingencies in the deal with Sanofi reflect that. In 2010, Eli Lilly and partner MacroGenics were developing the drug and decided to shelve it after a study failed to reduce insulin use in patients with recent-onset Type 1 diabetes.
Provention got interested as continuing academic studies suggested benefits for the drug and bought the rights in 2018. By 2019, the purchase seemed like a good bet as researchers published a study in The New England Journal of Medicine that found the drug could delay the onset of disease with a single 14-day course of treatment.
The trial included 76 relatives of Type 1 diabetes patients who were themselves at high risk of developing the disease. Many of the patients went on to be diagnosed with the condition, but the median time to diagnosis for patients taking teplizumab was four years, compared with two years in the placebo group. READ MORE
By Kristin Jensen
Sourc: biopharmadive.com
Avivi joins Bayer fresh off a yearlong stint as chief marketing officer of Advance Auto Parts, which followed about three years spent as marketing chief of another auto parts company, Tenneco. Rounding out her nearly 30-year career in marketing are leadership roles at consumer goods giants Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble.
Air Liquide S.A. (Paris) is continuing its development with the acquisition of Homecare activities in Belgium and the Netherlands. The two entities acquired in Belgium and the Netherlands support 10,000 patients living with respiratory insufficiency, sleep apnea syndrome or requiring infusion or nutrition treatments.
US-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals has agreed to pay approximately $4.9 billion in cash to acquire Alpine Immune Sciences, a compatriot biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing innovative, protein-based immunotherapies.
