Deals, Development and Manufacturing

AstraZeneca’s acquisition of Caelum Biosciences gives them access to CAEL-101, a promising light chain amyloidosis treatment.

Pure Psyence, Pure Extracts and Psyence’s joint venture company, will develop psilocybin-derived treatments.

Merck’s 11.5 billion acquisition of Acceleron gives them access to their lead therapeutic candidate, sotatercept.

ProductLife Group (PLG) and Juuka Advisory have teamed up to form a new consulting offering, ProductLife Consulting.

The research collaboration between AstraZeneca and VaxEquity aims to discover and develop self-amplifying RNA therapeutics.

BMG Pharma has signed an agreement with HTL for the development and commercialization of injectable products with sodium hyaluronate lipoate formate.

Exscientia has entered into a four-year agreement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the development of small-molecule therapeutics that can tackle coronavirus and other viruses with pandemic potential.

GeneQuine Biotherapeutics has chosen Exothera to advance the development of its osteoarthritis gene therapy product candidate, GQ-303.

The joint venture with OSTHUS will expand PharmaLex’s IT consulting and system integration expertise.

AzurRx’s acquisition of First Wave Bio grants them access to their proprietary niclosamide formulations.

The memorandum of understanding between ABITEC and Luca AICell will work to advance ultra-high purity lipidic chemistries.

Boehringer Ingelheim and Twist Bioscience will use Twist’s antibody libraries to discover therapeutic antibody candidates.

Vector Laboratories has completed a $124 million cash buyout backed by Thompson Street Capital Partners and will begin an acquisition strategy to expand protein detection capabilities.

ILC Therapeutics, has successfully closed a £3.5 million (US$4.9 million) pre-initial public offering (IPO) funding round.

Moderna announced a collaboration to develop a new mRNA therapeutic for Crigler-Najjar Syndrome Type 1 at no cost to patients.

The US government has granted Thermo Fisher Scientific a $192.5 million contract that the company will use to expand domestic manufacturing for pipette tips.

Despite the market challenges caused by COVID-19, M&A activity in the life sciences sector is recovering well.

SpringWorks Therapeutics and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will conduct further research into the therapeutic potential of combination therapy with nirogacestat and anti-BCMA agents for multiple myeloma.

Aadi Bioscience has closed its previously announced merger with Aerpio Pharmaceuticals and a concurrent $155-million PIPE investment.

Insilico Biotechnology has joined the Inno4vac project—an innovative European public-private partnership aimed at accelerating vaccine R&D timelines.

The University of Southern California and Amgen have teamed up to provide researchers access to two of Thermo Fisher Scientific’s cryo-EM instruments.

Eli Lilly and Company and industry partners, including Ziath, are focused on speeding up the drug discovery process with a fully automated lab.

BioMed X has partnered with Janssen to start two new research programs for autoimmune diseases and drug delivery.

Signal Rx Pharmaceuticals, Crystec, and ADYA Consulting are collaborating on the development of an inhaled dry powder formulation of SF2523 to treat pulmonary fibrosis, lung cancer, and SARS-CoV-2 related illnesses.

Pfizer’s proposed $2.26-billion acquisition of Trillium Therapeutics will add next-generation hematology-targeted immuno-therapeutics to its oncology pipeline.

Bristol Myers Squibb has exercised the option to in-license an immune-modulating drug candidate developed by Exscientia.

Merck KGaA has partnered with Telix Pharmaceuticals to conduct combination clinical studies for cancer therapy.

The collaboration will focus on the interactions between WTX-124 indukine and KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab).

Lykan Bioscience and Vineti will combine their capabilities to streamline process development and manufacturing to move cell therapies through clinical phases to commercialization.

A collaboration between Aldevron and Ginkgo Bioworks has resulted in a manufacturing enhancement that can improve production of an enzyme used for mRNA therapeutics.