14 January 2019.
Last week saw the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference held in San Francisco. Venture Valuation and Biotechgate was represented by CEO, Patrik Frei and Senior Business Development Executive Ray Carroll providing their insights into the industry announcements.
It was again a busy week in San Francisco kicking off the Bio year 2019 where Venture Valuation / Biotechgate attended the BiotechShowcase as well as RESI. It was great to meet and catch-up with many known faces and meeting new companies as well. Below provides a summary of some of the key reveals given at the conference:
IPO announcements:
Three biotech companies made their IPO pitches during the conference; Poseida Therapeutics which is looking for USD 115m to list on the Nasdaq for its BCMA CAR-T therapy, Alector which is looking for USD 150m for immune-neurology treatments into Alzheimer’s and dementia and Anchiano Therapeutics, a bladder cancer biotech, this has filed for a USD 35m public offering.
M&A announcements:
During the first day of the conference, Eli Lily announced a USD 8bn acquisition of the cancer treatment company Loxo Onocoloy. Also in oncology and announced last month, GSK CEO Emma Walmsley discussed the acquisition of Tesero for USD 5bn. This deal provides GSK with access to a PD-1 inhibitor as well as a PARP inhibitor in development. Finally, the big story so far this year has been the announcement by Bristol-Myers Squibb’s of their merger with Celgene in a USD 74bn deal.
Fund raising:
Pear Therapeutics announced a new series C USD 64m round, led by Temasek, just as the company prepares to launch its reset-O prescription digital therapeutic for opioid use disorder. The funding will be used to support a global launch as well as planning to acquire new assets for schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis treatments.
Partnership deals:
Adaptive Biotech has agreed a deal with Roche’s Genetech for access to their technology platform, designed to identify T-cell receptors (TCRs) for therapeutic use. The deal includes a USD 300m up-front payment and up to USD 2bn in milestone payments. The deal is expected to close during Q1 2019, with Adaptive Biotech taking responsibility for patient specific TCR screening and Genentech managing clinical development, regulatory submissions and commercialization.
Other news:
Biotech Xencor announced a split from their partnership with Novartis, with the pharma company giving back rights to research and sales. The original deal was agreed in 2016 and included a USD 150m upfront payment and up to USD 2.41bn milestone payments for a pair of immune-oncology assets in development. Teva also reported on it cost-saving progress, the company has suffered from top-line pressure due to price declines and is currently on-track to deliver USD 3bn in cost cutting.
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