A week after disclosing layoffs, BridgeBio nets a $90M upfront cancer R&D pact with Bristol Myers – Endpoints News

Bridge­Bio has lo­cat­ed the bridge to green­er pas­tures, specif­i­cal­ly the lav­ish pur­ple of Bris­tol My­ers Squibb.
The two are col­lab­o­rat­ing in a deal giv­ing the re­or­ga­nized biotech an up­front pay­ment of $90 mil­lion, a cap­i­tal in­fu­sion that comes a week af­ter the Pa­lo Al­to, CA biotech dis­closed $23 to $25 mil­lion in re­struc­tur­ing-re­lat­ed costs. That move al­so in­clud­ed the out-li­cens­ing of six pro­grams, a round of lay­offs, con­sol­i­da­tion of fa­cil­i­ties and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties in a ma­jor re-route.
A deal with BMS might get Bridge­Bio back on track af­ter a ma­jor Phase III set­back last year for aco­ramidis, a drug meant to slow the pro­gres­sion of the rare dis­ease TTR amy­loi­do­sis. The duo will work to­geth­er on BBP-398, an SHP2 in­hibitor, for var­i­ous on­col­o­gy pro­grams. The in­hibitor is thought to con­tribute to var­i­ous can­cers, be a source of re­sis­tance to tar­get­ed ther­a­pies and play a role in sup­press­ing im­mu­ni­ty to tu­mors.
The $90 mil­lion is just a small chunk of the over­all $905 mil­lion that Bridge­Bio can pull in from the part­ner­ship, should all mile­stones play out, and more in low- to mid-teens tiered roy­al­ties if the drug makes it to mar­ket. The two linked arms last sum­mer on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al can­cer treat­ment, with a non-ex­clu­sive, co-fund­ed clin­i­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion to pair up BBP-398 with BMS’ Op­di­vo in pa­tients with ad­vanced sol­id tu­mors with KRAS mu­ta­tions.
Bridge­Bio will con­tin­ue lead­ing those on­go­ing Phase I monother­a­py and com­bo treat­ment stud­ies. Fol­low­ing those tri­als, BMS will take over fi­nanc­ing for all oth­er de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial work, the com­pa­nies said Thurs­day. If Bridge­Bio wants high­er roy­al­ties, though, it could opt in to fund part of the de­vel­op­ment costs once reg­is­tra­tional stud­ies kick in­to gear.
“We have seen the po­ten­tial role SHP2 in­hi­bi­tion could play in un­lock­ing pos­si­ble com­bi­na­tion ther­a­pies to treat pa­tients suf­fer­ing from a range of can­cers. We are hope­ful this col­lab­o­ra­tion with Bridge­Bio will help us max­i­mize the pos­si­bil­i­ties SHP2 in­hi­bi­tion with BBP-398 will hold for pa­tients,” said Ru­pert Vessey, BMS EVP of re­search and ear­ly de­vel­op­ment, in a press re­lease.
The drug was found­ed through a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas MD An­der­son Can­cer Cen­ter. Lian­Bio and Bridge­Bio have teamed up on the drug, as well, for the treat­ment’s de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion in main­land Chi­na and oth­er re­gions of Asia. Those stud­ies re­volve around non-small cell lung can­cer and col­orec­tal and pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. The drug is al­so part of a com­bo test with Am­gen’s Lumakras for ad­vanced sol­id tu­mors with KRAS^G12C mu­ta­tions.
In ad­di­tion to the lay­offs and fa­cil­i­ty down­siz­ing an­nounced last week dur­ing earn­ings, Bridge­Bio said it wants to out-li­cense six pro­grams: two clin­i­cal-stage drugs, two pre­clin­i­cal AAV gene ther­a­pies and two oth­er pre-hu­man tri­al as­sets.
How are top investors navigating the longest biotech bear market in almost 20 years? RBC Capital Markets Healthcare Desk Sector Strategist Chris McCarthy discusses key fundamentals, macro-awareness and the continued impact of COVID with HealthCor’s Ben Snedeker and Omega Funds founder Otello Stampacchia.
Biotech indexes may be down, but both Snedeker and Otello Stampacchia, Ph.D., Founder and Managing Director of Omega Funds, see opportunities in the market. In Snedeker’s opinion, investors need to seek out companies with the potential for meaningful revenue growth, particularly those that are mispriced in the current bear market.
Caribou Biosciences just flipped its first card on human data for its lead off-the-shelf anti-CD19 CAR-T, and it’s an ace.
The biotech reported out on a tiny group of patients — just five treatment-resistant individuals suffering from B cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in this first round — and came up with a 100% overall response rate with an 80% complete response rate.
Those headline numbers quickly registered as a rare win these days in the bleak biotech sector, as Caribou’s share price $CRBU surged 25%.
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Roche has racked up its second straight Phase III fail for its TIGIT tiragolumab, flagging a flop on the progression-free survival co-primary endpoint for the drug combined with Tecentriq as a first-line treatment for PD-L1 high patients suffering from non-small cell lung cancer.
The other co-primary endpoint in the SKYSCRAPER-01 study on overall survival hasn’t reached the readout phase yet. But this time around Roche execs are waiting to see if it just might hit positive after seeing numerical gains for both endpoints.
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NSYNC boy band member Lance Bass didn’t realize his aches and pains weren’t just a byproduct of a busy lifestyle, many years of dancing and of course, aging. Instead, it was psoriatic arthritis.
Now Bass is partnering with Amgen and its anti-inflammatory brand Otezla to help others recognize the signs of psoriatic arthritis. The singer and dancer, whose career began as one of the five boys of NSYNC with popular hit songs and coordinated dance move videos such as “Bye Bye Bye” and “It’s Gonna Be Me,” is translating those moves to a short TikTok-style “Double Take” dance.
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Scynexis is rolling out a new campaign for its Brexafemme yeast infection treatment, but the effort is more than just advertising.
As CEO Marco Taglietti said in wrapping his prepared comments during an earnings call on Thursday, “Let me finish with our new rallying cry — yeast infection, say no more.”
That headline — written as “Yeast infection? Say no more” — appears on Scynexis’ recently launched ad campaign to healthcare providers and will begin rolling out to consumers later this month.
An India-based generics manufacturer is once again feeling the wrath of US regulators.
Aurobindo Pharma has been slapped with a Form 483 following an inspection of the company’s oral manufacturing facility, the company announced in a letter, while keeping the details to a minimum.
The facility is located in Jadcherla, India, outside of the city of Hyderabad. The inspection began last week, and concluded on Tuesday, according to Aurobindo. The FDA noted six observations, though it’s still unclear exactly what went wrong.
There’s a bottleneck in manufacturing right now, and perhaps the category that is the best representative of the issue is cell and gene therapy. Several companies are trying different things to address the issue, but Multiply Labs has enlisted some CDMO powerhouses on its path toward the automation of the process.
Cytiva and the University of California-San Francisco were already members of the robotic cell therapy manufacturing consortium Multiply, founded in 2021. Last week, it was announced that Thermo Fisher Scientific and Charles River Laboratories have joined the team to help develop a cGMP-compliant system that can make gene-modified cell therapies at an individual scale.
GlaxoSmithKline is teaming up with “Beverly Hills 90210” star Jennie Garth around its anti-inflammatory med Voltaren.
Garth, who has osteoarthritis and uses the over-the-counter gel Voltaren, is also a caregiver. She’s partnering with GSK to launch the CareWalks video series where she hosts a walk and talk with other caregivers to discuss their experiences and challenges – and their joint pain.
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CSL’s mammoth Vifor Pharma buyout will have to wait a few more months, the company revealed on Wednesday, as experts wonder whether antitrust regulators will slow things down across the entire industry.
While CSL previously expected to close its $11.7 billion Vifor acquisition this June, the company said on Wednesday that the regulatory approval process is taking a bit longer than expected. Some antitrust authorities have approved the transaction, but others remain outstanding, Vifor said in a statement.
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