Deals, Development and Manufacturing

Samsung Biologics has signed an agreement with Biogen to acquire Biogen’s 50% stake in Samsung Bioepis, a joint venture formed by the two companies, for up to $2.3 billion.

PhoreMost has entered into separate collaboration agreements with Polaris Quantum Biotech and NeoCura Bio-Medical Technology to discover and develop novel cancer therapeutics.

BenchSci, a specialist in machine learning applications for novel medicine development, has completed a Series C financing round.

Scottish biotech engineering company, uFraction8, has successfully secured more than £2.5 million ($3.3 million) in new investment.

A collaboration and licensing agreement has been entered into by the Queen’s University Belfast and Ipsen.

Stevanato Group has extended its licensing agreement with Haselmeier for its Axis-D pen injector technology.

UCB and Zogenix have agreed to an acquisition deal totaling nearly $2 billion.

Merck and Ridgeback Therapeutics will supply UNICEF with up to three million capsules of molnupiravir through the first half of 2022.

PharmaLex Group has merged with MAP Group, broadening its market access expertise and extending its reach into the Italian marketplace.

Colorcon Ventures is investing in a provider of intelligent manufacturing execution systems (MES), Apprentice.io.

In their collaboration, Bristol Myers Squibb and Prellis Biologics aim to generate human antibody libraries for select targets to enable drug discovery.

After a previously announced merger, Protagen Protein Services, BioAnalytix, and GeneWerk have formed a new CRO under the name ProtaGene.

Pfizer will pay Beam $300 million upfront to conduct research on three undisclosed base editing targets in the liver, muscle, and central nervous system.

Fosun Pharma and Insilico Medicine will collaborate on AI-driven drug discovery and development of product candidates targeting multiple disease targets.

The collaboration between Bristol Myers Squibb and Century Therapeutics will combine Century’s iPSC-derived allogeneic cell therapy platform with Bristol Myers Squibb’s expertise in cell therapy and oncology drug development.

The agreeement will add to Merck KGaA’s LNP and mRNA capabilities.

The collaboration will leverage Alynlam’s proprietary small interfering RNA (siRNA) technology to inhibit a target discovered by Novartis.

Neurimmune will receive up to $760 million for NI006, an investigational human monoclonal antibody in development for the treatment of transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy.

The acquisition of Protein Metrics expands Insightful Science’s R&D solutions to include proteomics.

Sanofi’s acquisition of Amunix will grant access to their promising immuno-oncology pipeline.

Bionique Testing Laboratories has been acquired by Asahi Kasei Medical and will join the company’s biosafety testing services unit.

Pfizer’s $6.7 billion acquisition of Arena will give them access to a portfolio of immuno-inflammatory therapies.

GlaxoSmithKline, together with the University of Oxford, has launched the Oxford-GSK Institute under a new collaboration that aims to study complex diseases to accelerate the success of drug discovery and drug development efforts.

Lonza has signed a five-year services agreement to provide for the development and manufacturing of biologics and small molecules for portfolio companies owned by Bioqube Ventures.

Leucid Bio will collaborate with Lonza to use Lonza’s Cocoon Platform for clinical and commercial manufacturing of CAR T cells for Leucid’s lead candidate.

Sanofi’s acquisition of Origimm Biotechnology will add to its pipeline of vaccine candidates for treating acne.

Doer Biologics will use Lonza’s XS technology in the production of its proprietary platform technology.

AstraZeneca struck a deal worth up to more than $3.5 billion with Ionis Pharmaceuticals for the rights to develop and commercialize their transthyretin (TTR) amyloidosis treatment.

Recordati’s blockbuster acquisition of EUSA Pharma gives them access to a portfolio of four drugs that treat rare cancers.

Lean delivery offers a promising solution to supply and manufacturing bottlenecks by integrating project teams early on and widening the team’s field of view.