Welcome to the latest edition of our EuroBiotech Report. We start in Basel, Switzerland, where the city's big beasts spent the week shuttling drugs into and out of their pipelines. Novartis moved to add to its pipeline by penning a $2.1 billion deal to buy Endocyte. Across town at Roche, a clutch of programs picked up in deals years ago landed on the scrapheap. In the U.K., old news caused fresh turmoil as politicians used AstraZeneca's words as weapons in the war over Brexit. F-star named ex-Immunocore CEO Eliot Forster as its new leader. Pharnext posted positive data from a phase 3 rare disease trial. And more. — Nick Taylor
1. Novartis inks $2.1B Endocyte buyout, furthering radiotherapy push
Novartis has struck a $2.1 billion (€1.8 billion) deal to acquire Endocyte. The deal caps off a whirlwind year for Endocyte, which licensed the cancer drug that caught Novartis’ eye for $12 million just 12 months ago.
2. Roche sheds clutch of in-licensed drugs in pipeline cull
Roche has removed a handful of programs from its phase 1 and 2 pipeline as part of a periodic cleanout. The most advanced drug to get the chop is RG6125, an anti-cadherin 11 antibody that entered a phase 2 rheumatoid arthritis trial last year.
3. U.K. politicians fret Brexit will ‘decimate medical research’
AstraZeneca’s reiteration of its previously announced freeze on investments in U.K. manufacturing has caused alarm among politicians. In the fevered pre-Brexit environment, pro-Remain politicians saw the reiteration of an old position as evidence the split from the U.K. will decimate life science research.
4. F-star names ex-Immunocore CEO Eliot Forster as leader
F-star has named ex-Immunocore CEO Eliot Forster as its new leader. The appointment puts a CEO known for raising huge sums of cash in charge of a well-regarded bispecific antibody R&D shop that has funded its progress to date through savvy dealmaking.
5. Pharnext muscle wasting phase 3 hits primary endpoint
A phase 3 trial of Pharnext’s PXT3003 in a rare muscle-wasting disease has met its primary endpoint. The trial linked the fixed-dose combination to a statistically significant improvement on a measure of patient disability.