NEWS OF THE WEEK
DEAL FRENZY Novartis, Merck Serono add to flurry of immuno-oncology spending this year ◾ Bristol-Myers Squibb pays $60 million for an option on Bavarian Nordic’s prostate cancer vaccine. ◾ BMS pays $800 million to acquire Flexus for its IDO1 and TDO2 inhibitors. ◾ BMS pays Rigel $30 million to access TGF-β receptor kinase inhibitors. ◾ Amgen pays Kite Pharma $60 million to combine Amgen oncology targets with Kite’s CART platform. NOTE: Deals are ordered from most recent to least recent.
MORE DEALS IN IMMUNOTHERAPY PHARMACEUTICALS: Novartis and Merck Serono broaden their immuno-oncology portfolios
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HE FRENZY FOR cancer immunotherapy
deals continued last week with two big pharma pacts. Novartis shelled out $200 million as part of a multiyear alliance with Aduro Biotech for preclinical cyclic dinucleotides. And Merck Serono paid $115 million to access Intrexon’s chimeric antigen T-cell (CART) technology. Aduro’s cyclic dinucleotides activate the stimulator of interferon genes, or STING, pathway, triggering a broad immune response directed at tumor cells. Novartis, which has a complementary internal program to develop small-molecule STING activators, believes the approach will boost the types of tumors that can be treated with immunotherapy. For Novartis, the Aduro deal adds yet another weapon to a considerable immunotherapy arsenal. The company is already committed to CART therapy, in which a patient’s own T cells are reengineered
SAFETY BOARD CHAIR STEPS DOWN INVESTIGATIONS: Rafael Moure-Eraso resigns from chemical accidents review agency under White House pressure
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Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has resigned at the request of the White House. Members of Congress had called on President Barack Obama to fire Rafael Moure-Eraso, charging that he mismanaged the independent agency that investigates accidents at chemical facilities. Moure-Eraso, who had just three months left in his five-year term as head of CSB, announced his resignation to staff in an e-mail on March 26. “It has been a privilege to serve the agency since June 2010,” the e-mail said. “My wishes are for the continued success and productivity of the Board. I am forever grateful for the hard work of the agency that has led to so many successes over the past five years,” Moure-Eraso wrote. His tenure was marked by turmoil at the CSB
CSB is without a chair now that Moure-Eraso is gone.
HE CHAIRMAN OF the Chemical Safety &
CEN.ACS.ORG
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to home in on cancer, and later this year it will start clinical studies of three checkpoint inhibitors, antibodies designed to take the brakes off of the immune system (see page 10). That broad portfolio gives Novartis a number of treatments to choose from, a key advantage as the field of cancer immunotherapy moves toward combinations of drugs. “In this immune checkpoint space, you absolutely have to have combinations in order to get response rates up,” says Paul D. Rennert, head of the consulting firm SugarCone Biotech. “Otherwise, you have expensive drugs that are only going to work in the minority of patients.” But, as Novartis’s hefty payment reflects, complementary drugs come at a premium. Rennert notes that Bristol-Myers Squibb’s $800 million acquisition of Flexus Biosciences, announced in February, “set a tone that anything differentiating and additive to the portfolio was going to get a lot of attention.” Merck Serono’s deal with Intrexon diverges from that trend, Rennert adds. Merck Serono, which is broadening its immunotherapy portfolio beyond checkpoint inhibitors, is getting the CART technology for not much more than what Intrexon paid for it. In January, Intrexon and its oncology drug development partner, Ziopharm Oncology, paid $100 million in stock to license the technology from the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.—LISA JARVIS
agency and charges that he delayed investigations and created a toxic work environment that led to low employee morale and staff attrition. House lawmakers have signaled that they intend to continue scrutinizing CSB. In a March 27 letter, the leaders of the Energy & Commerce Committee asked the remaining three board members to explain a series of recent controversial management decisions. In January, for instance, the board consolidated authority in the chairman’s office over personnel, spending, investigations, communications, and general administration of CSB. “We request your assistance to help the committee understand recent board actions and related decisions to assess how … they may affect future CSB mission performance, and what should be done to ensure the appropriate governance of the agency,” wrote Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the panel’s chairman, and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), its ranking member. The five-member CSB panel has two vacant seats. Obama has nominated Vanessa Allen Sutherland, a Department of Transportation lawyer, to become the board’s next chief. Obama has also nominated chemist Kristen M. Kulinowski, a staff member at think tank Science & Technology Policy Institute, to replace Beth J. Rosenberg, who resigned from her position last year. The White House plans to appoint CSB member Manuel Ehrlich as interim chairman pending the Senate’s confirmation of Sutherland.—GLENN HESS
APRIL 6, 2015
