Boehringer Ingelheim Acquires Cancer Vaccine Biotech in €325M Deal

The German giant Boehringer Ingelheim has acquired the Swiss company AMAL Therapeutics and its cancer vaccine technology in a deal worth up to €325M.

The deal includes €225M in upfront and developmental milestone payments, as well as up to €100M in undisclosed commercial milestone payments. AMAL’s vaccine development pipeline includes five preclinical programs. The lead vaccine, intended for colorectal cancer, is expected to enter phase I trials this year.

Boehringer aims to combine its own cancer immunotherapy programs with AMAL’s technology. Boehringer is targeting solid tumors that have no inflammation, making them resistant to immunotherapies including checkpoint inhibitors. AMAL’s cancer vaccine technology could help Boehringer develop ways to evoke an immune response to these cancers.

“We want to pioneer new paradigms of biology-based care for cancer patients, and the technologies and expertise developed at AMAL are critical to our efforts,” stated Michel Pairet, one of Boehringer Ingelheim’s Managing Directors.

AMAL’s cancer vaccine technology has some differences to that developed by other companies such as Hookipa, which modifies viruses, and BioNTech, which uses mRNA molecules. To make the vaccine, AMAL fuses different recombinant peptides together, all with different functions. One encodes the cancer antigens, another delivers the antigens to immune cells and another catalyzes the immune response.

Boehringer Ingelheim was previously an investor in AMAL Therapeutics, contributing to the company’s €2.8M Series A round in 2016 and €8M Series B round in 2017.

This is only the latest in a series of deals from Boehringer, which is expanding its portfolio in cancer therapies. Last year, Boehringer acquired the oncolytic virus company ViraTherapeutics for €210M, and signed a deal worth up to €1B for a checkpoint inhibitor in the works from OSE Immunotherapeutics.

Source:https://labiotech.eu/medical/boehringer-ingelheim-amal-therapeutics/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EMA validates Incyte’s MAA for retifanlimab to treat metastatic squamous cell anal carcinoma

Incyte, global biopharmaceutical company, announced the validation of the Company’s Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) for retifanlimab, an intravenous PD-1 inhibitor, as a potential treatment for adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic squamous cell anal carcinoma (SCAC) who have progressed on, or who are intolerant of, platinum-based chemotherapy. The European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) validation of the MAA confirms that the submission is sufficiently complete to begin the formal review process. “While the incidence of SCAC is increasing in Europe, treatment options for advanced disease are limited in their effectiveness, and there are no approved options once patients have progressed on standard therapy,” said Lance Leopold, M.D., Group vice president, Immuno-Oncology Clinical Development, Incyte. “The EMA validation of the MAA for retifanlimab – which follows the recent US Food & Drug Administration acceptance of our Biologics License Application for Priority R
Read more

Merck’s Keytruda plus platinum- and fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy receives US FDA nod to treat certain patients with locally advanced/metastatic esophageal or GEJ carcinoma

Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Keytruda, Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy, for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic esophageal or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) (tumors with epicenter 1 to 5 centimeters above the GEJ) carcinoma that is not amenable to surgical resection or definitive chemoradiation in combination with platinum- and fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy. The approval is based on results from the phase 3 KEYNOTE-590 trial, which demonstrated significant improvements in overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS) and objective response rate (ORR) for Keytruda plus fluorouracil (FU) and cisplatin versus FU and cisplatin alone, regardless of histology or PD-L1 expression status. For OS and PFS, Keytruda plus FU and cisplatin reduced the risk of death by 27% (HR=0.73 [95% CI, 0.62-0.86]; p<0.0001) and reduced the risk of disease progression or death
Read more

Tumour-targeting drug paves way for bone cancer treatment

 The treatment of osteosarcoma, the most common tumour of bone, is challenging, but a new study is offering hope to the patients with this disease. The study led by The University of  Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre  found that a drug, known as bone metastasis-targeting peptidomimetic (BMTP-11), has potential as a new therapeutic strategy for this devastating illness. Results from the preclinical study looked at BMTP-11 alone and in combination with the chemotherapy agent gemcitabine. Although osteosarcoma is a relatively rare cancer, it is a leading disease-related cause of death in children and young adults ages 10 to 20. However, over the last 25 years, the five-year survival rate has remained unchanged, and the treatment options for these patients are few. In addition, the side effects of available treatment options often are significant and cumulative, and may cause other health problems and damage to major organs. "What's novel about this treatment is that BMTP
Read more