West Coast Bio Roundup: UCLA Cashes In, BioMarin Tries once more & more

UCLA Sunset, Royce Hall

The prostate cancer drug enzalutamide (Xtandi), from San Francisco’s Medivation, has had an extended, legally tangled historical past. Its inventors might also call it moneymaking: a big apple finance crew that specializes in drug gross sales royalties has sold royalty rights from the university of California, los angeles, and others for more than $ 1 billion.

Reversals of fortune were additionally an issue this week on the West Coast. not up to two years ago, Exelixis laid off just about three-quarters of the company as a result of its main drug failed an immense prostate cancer check whereas rival drugs like enzalutamide reached the market. however it has clawed back to the brink of an immense approval in kidney most cancers, and now has money in its pocket because of an incredible licensing handle Ipsen. also in the Bay house, BioMarin Pharmaceutical is looking to rebound, too, lower than two months after an FDA rejection. It says information from a small trial are sufficient to ask regulators for a drug approval in Batten illness.

Two West Coast corporations are a part of the race to deliver engineered T cells to market to deal with most cancers sufferers with otherwise untreatable varieties of blood cancers. Santa Monica, CA-primarily based Kite Pharma (NASDAQ: KITE) and Seattle’s Juno Therapeutics (NASDAQ: JUNO) each hope to have their remedies on the market next year, however a lot of issues have to break proper. EPVantage analyst Jacob Plieth wrote an summary of the competition between the companies after digesting their quarterly revenue reviews. There’s more news from the Bay area, Seattle and from San Diego, too, so let’s get to the roundup.

—Royalty Pharma of new York has offered royalty rights to some of the future sales of the prostate most cancers drug enzalutamide (Xtandi) for $ 1.14 billion upfront. just about half of that cash, $ 520 million, is going to the university of California, la, where so much of the work in the back of the compound was once carried out, and the other half of will be spread between the inventors and the Howard Hughes medical Institute, consistent with Royalty Pharma. The monetary agency might pay out extra at some point in keeping with gross sales milestones, but these important points have been undisclosed. San Francisco’s Medivation (NASDAQ: MDVN) and its accomplice Astellas sell enzalutamide and are also testing it as a remedy for breast and liver most cancers.  in the meantime, a few of enzalutamide’s inventors not too long ago formed a new firm, ORIC Therapeutics, to strengthen a drug that treats enzalutamide-resistant most cancers.

—Slapped down in January by using the FDA in its try and carry a Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug to market, BioMarin Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ: BMRN) of San Rafael, CA, mentioned this week it might try once more this yr with a distinct drug. the company stated information from an early stage trial to treat a type of the rare, genetically inherited Batten disease are just right enough to means U.S. and European regulators for advertising approval. The trial examined BioMarin’s cerliponase alfa, an enzyme replacement, in 24 youngsters with a type of Batten that most often ends in death by early early life.

—Exelixis (NASDAQ: EXEL) of South San Francisco, CA, introduced a tie-up with French drug agency Ipsen. For $ 200 million upfront, Ipsen will obtain rights to the Exelixis drug cabozantinib (Cometriq) world wide excluding in the U.S., Canada, and Japan. Ipsen will even pay Exelixis $ 60 million if cabozantinib is licensed with the aid of European regulators for evolved renal cell carcinoma, one of those kidney most cancers, and $ 50 million if approved in Europe for developed hepatocellular carcinoma, or liver most cancers. Ipsen may pay Exelixis as much as $ 545 million in industrial milestones plus royalties up to 26 percent of Ipsen’s sales.

—HardTech Labs, which is constructing a existence sciences accelerator on the La Jolla Institute for allergic reaction and Immunology, has named Michael Mendez as CTO and managing companion. Mendez might be deciding on startups for the HTL life accelerator software, which has area for as many as 15 startups. Mendez was a key scientist at a couple of California biotechs, including Sapphire energy, Syrrx, and Abgenix.

—Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) of Foster city, CA, stated that the FDA has licensed a three-drug combination for the treatment of HIV-1. The product, Odefsey, combines two of Gilead’s older HIV medicine with one from a division of Johnson & Johnson.

—San Diego-primarily based Qualcomm’s (NASDAQ: QCOM) digital well being industry and UnitedHealthcare, the biggest U.S. medical insurance company, are beginning a collaboration that features a fitness tracker application. members who wear a Trio activity tracker can earn credits up to $ 4 a break day their insurance coverage deductible based on the choice of steps they walk.

—NanoString applied sciences (NASDAQ: NSTG) of Seattle will obtain up to $ 24 million from Merck (NYSE: MRK) to improve a check that predicts if cancer patients are possible to answer Merck’s drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda), which is approved to deal with evolved circumstances of melanoma, a type of pores and skin most cancers, and non-small cell lung cancer. the businesses said the test would practice to “multiple tumor sorts.”

—Xconomy San Diego editor Bruce V. Bigelow contributed to this document.

—picture “UCLA sunset, Royce hall” courtesy of Jojolae by way of a inventive Commons license.

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