Roche
NEWS
Shares of Germany-based BioNTech were down as much as 8% Friday after announcing a Phase 2 trial of autogene cevumeran would be discontinued for futility. The news follows Merck and Moderna’s Phase 3 win last week for their cancer vaccine plus Keytruda in melanoma.
Through its DualityBio deal, Roche’s Genentech hopes to create antibody-drug conjugates with payloads that can circumvent growing cancer drug resistance.
Current leaders Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have cornered the early market for weight loss therapeutics, but several other players, large and small, are bidding for a piece of the potential $200 billion pie.
Roche, through its subsidiary Genentech, will gain access to the investigational asset HM17321, which is designed to not only elicit weight loss but also improve lean mass.
After committing $2 billion to a new North Carolina facility to boost capacity for its next-gen obesity candidates, Roche’s Genentech is putting down more cash to expand a device fill-finish site in Oregon.
Acmopatide met the main goal of a Phase 2 study in type 1 diabetes, but Roche is axing the investigational drug to prioritize enicepatide for weight loss, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular outcomes. Both assets come from the $2.7 billion buy of Carmot Therapeutics.
The failure of Roche’s Ionis-partnered tominersen in Huntington’s disease may indicate that Wave Life Sciences’ allele-specific antisense oligonucleotide candidate WVE-003 is on the right track, according to analysts at Rodman & Renshaw.
Roche’s decision to discontinue the Ionis-partnered trials came soon after the biotech sustained a late-stage failure in ATTR-CM.
With the latest round, Roche’s Genentech will have racked up nearly 450 layoffs in California over the last year amid ongoing restructuring. At the same time, the biotech is joining forces with Astex Pharmaceuticals in a deal that could surpass $490 million.
JOBS
IN THE PRESS