Scenic Biotech has joined the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s LRRK2 consortium to test a Parkinson’s disease approach that targets neither LRRK2 nor GCase directly.
Sanofi’s $11.6bn Bioverativ acquisition is back under scrutiny after riliprubart, a rare disease drug inherited through the deal, failed a phase 3 CIDP study. While Altuviiio has become a blockbuster, the latest setback raises fresh questions about whether the Bioverativ pipeline can justify its price tag.
Oslo-based Circio has completed a NOK300m (€27m) financing round, extending its runway to the end of 2030 and giving the company funds to advance its circVec circular RNA expression platform toward IND-enabling development and clinical proof-of-concept.
Swedish biotech AlzeCure Pharma entered a collaboration and licensing agreement with Eli Lilly, granting the biopharma giant global rights to its Alzheimer’s disease candidate Alzstatin (ACD680). Under the terms of the deal, Alzecure will receive $10 million upfront and could receive more than $1 billion in development and commercial milestone payments, in addition to tiered royalties on future sales.
Boehringer Ingelheim has reported new Phase III data for survodutide, its once-weekly dual GLP-1/glucagon receptor agonist for obesity, highlighting reductions in body weight, visceral fat and liver fat. The results, presented at the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions, strengthen the company’s case that survodutide could offer a differentiated profile in metabolic disease, although gastrointestinal tolerability remains a key question.
Portuguese drugmaker BIAL has discontinued development of BIA 28-6156, also known as pariceract, after a Phase IIb study failed to show that the oral therapy could slow progression in patients with GBA-associated Parkinson’s disease. The readout marks a setback for one of the more advanced attempts to turn Parkinson’s genetics into a disease-modifying therapy.
EngitixLondon-based Engitix Ltd has entered a strategic research collaboration and option agreement with GSK to discover and validate new therapeutic targets for liver fibrosis regression, adding another pharma partnership to its extracellular matrix-driven drug discovery platform.
Swiss pharma giant Roche has signed a global licensing and collaboration agreement with US biotech Nurix Therapeutics to co-develop and co-commercialise bexobrutideg, an oral Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) degrader being developed for B-cell malignancies and potentially for immunology and neurology indications.
Swiss ADC specialist ADC Therapeutics has reported a statistically positive Phase III result for Zynlonta in relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, but a higher rate of fatal adverse events in the experimental arm has overshadowed the efficacy readout and triggered a sharp investor backlash.
The announcements came almost simultaneously and send a clear signal to policymakers and the industry: both US pharmaceutical group Eli Lilly and German-based Boehringer Ingelheim are calling planned investments in Germany into question, citing the country’s healthcare policy framework.