another chunky fibrosis deal
Thu 17:02
from today's Fiercebiotech.
"After having invested in Morphic Therapeutic’s A and B rounds, AbbVie is pulling the trigger on an R&D deal. The drugmaker is ponying up $100 million for the option to exclusively license multiple programs from Morphic that target fibrotic diseases.
Morphic’s pipeline consists of oral integrin inhibitors—integrin being a cell surface receptor found on most cells. Integrin signaling is involved in many cellular functions and abnormal signaling has been implicated in fibrosis, autoimmune diseases and immuno-oncology.
Under the agreement, Morphic will carry out R&D work on its fibrosis drugs through IND-enabling studies. At that point, AbbVie will be able to decide for each compound whether it will pay a license fee and then pick up responsibility for the global development and commercialization of the drug. Morphic could also bag clinical and commercial milestone payments and royalties for each drug that AbbVie takes forward.
Morphic also retains the option to share development costs with AbbVie on liver fibrosis indications, in exchange for “enhanced royalties.”
“Those liver markets are big,” said Morphic CEO Praveen Tipirneni, M.D. “With NASH, cirrhotic liver and so on ... we obviously had to have something pretty special to negotiate those kinds of rights.”
RE: Trading
12 Oct '18
Yes. The market maker knew it was good news. He/she collapsed the bid y’day afternoon to try and gather some scraps of stock to facilitate the buys we are now seeing....still, am surprised not to have seen an RNS this morn, not that we necessarily need it...
Trading
12 Oct '18
Looking like people held off purely due to market wobbles hoping for a drop but it didn't come. Large buys coming in now.
RE: Pharmaxis trial results
11 Oct '18
Agreed....can only be matter of time till we see the formal release on this news.
i also completely agree with Rich. This is such a valuable therapeutic target area that the numbers could really surprise.
Final point: think we haven't see the last of Astra in respiratory...They've had set-backs in the alternative paths they chose over SNG001 a couple of years back. They know the quality of the output from this team..
Price
