October 28, 2024

The need-to-know this morning

Monte Rosa Therapeutics announced a licensing deal with Novartis for an experimental drug called a "molecular glue degrader" that is being developed for immune-related diseases. Monte Rosa received $150 million from Novartis for global licensing rights to the Phase 1 drug, MRT-6160, and is eligible for another $2.1 billion in future payments.
AbbVie said it is acquiring privately held Aliada Therapeutics for $1.4 billion. Aliada is developing early-stage drugs for Alzheimer's disease with a technology that helps the medicines cross the blood-brain barrier.

immunotherapy

A biotech veteran is back, leading new cancer startup

It hasn't even been a year since Pfizer closed its $43 billion acquisition of Seagen — but David Epstein, who was CEO of Seagen, is back with a new company.

That company, Ottimo Pharma, launched today, aiming to develop a drug that could work in a variety of cancers. Specifically, the company is working on a dual-target antibody, jankistomig, that targets the PD-1 and VEGF proteins on cancer cells. Ottimo is hoping to launch Phase 1 studies next year, with hopes that this might attract an acquisition.

"When something truly unusual comes your way, not just another run-of-the-mill next drug, but something that can fundamentally change the standard of care for patients … it became very exciting the challenge of putting together a top-notch team that can take this drug into the clinic," Epstein told STAT's Andrew Joseph.

gene editing

Prime vs. Tessera: A gene-editing feud heats up

A fierce rivalry is brewing between gene-editing companies Prime Medicine and Tessera Therapeutics: Jeremy Duffield, Prime's chief scientific officer, late last week implied publicly that Tessera's approach is essentially Prime's editing approach in disguise.

Prime Medicine, which was spun out of David Liu's lab at the Broad Institute, has proprietary technology that allows single-letter changes to DNA. Tessera, backed by Flagship Pioneering, has meanwhile been vaguer about precisely what it's doing, STAT's Jason Mast writes. It claims its method, which is based on mobile genetic elements and target-primed reverse transcription, is unique and based on a 2018 patent. But critics argue that Tessera didn't produce results comparable to Liu's team until a patent filed after his 2019 paper.

cancer

Patient advocates raise concerns on Merck drug

The anti-fungal drug posaconazole, used in cancer patients, has a longer half-life in people with obesity, which can impact the efficacy of chemotherapies. But Merck, its original maker, hasn't updated the product label to reflect this reality, according to patient advocates.

As a result, many clinicians are in the dark about this issue, they told STAT's Ed Silverman. The company, however, says drug interactions associated with posaconazole are "currently well-described in the medicine's labeling."

Beyond an obvious concern for patients, the episode underscores how regulatory stalemates can occur over product labeling. Moreover, the matter highlights a paucity of clinical trial work about the effects that many medicines can have on people with obesity.

alzheimer's

The ethics of early Alzheimer's blood tests

Developing blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer's is transforming early detection and treatment — since traditionally diagnosticians have relied MRIs and PET scans. The new wave of tests detect amyloid plaques and tau tangles — with 85% to 90% diagnostic accuracy — but using them in asymptomatic people is raising some serious ethical and clinical questions, opine UCSF researchers Naveen Reddy and Kristine Yaffe.

"Universal testing could lead to earlier interventions and better outcomes for some, but it also increases the risk of overdiagnosis and overtreatment," they write in a new First Opinion. "In turn the widespread adoption of these tests could strain health care resources, potentially diverting attention from other critical areas."

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