Oditrasertib

Plus, news about Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Ultragenyx, Neurocrine Biosciences, TransThera, MoonLake Immunotherapeutics, Kelonia Therapeutics, Johnson & Johnson and Harmony Biosciences: 🖊️ Eli Lilly signs deal with XtalPi subsidiary: Lilly will get access to Ailux’s AI-powered bispecific antibody engineering platform, with rights to nominate an undisclosed number of targets. The deal could be worth up to $345 million across upfront and milestone payments. Ailux is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese biotech XtalPi. — Ayisha Sharma 🔬 Amgen stops trial of stomach cancer drug : Head of R&D Jay Bradner said that the company stopped a trial studying bemarituzumab in combination with chemotherapy and Opdivo for patients with first-line gastric cancer due to “inadequate efficacy.” The decision follows an updated analysis of the drug in a separate but similar trial showing that its overall survival benefit when combined with chemotherapy waned over time. A third study, FORTITUDE-103, is testing bemarituzumab in combination with other anti-cancer therapies and has completed enrollment, Amgen said. — Max Bayer 🛑 Lilly terminates CNS work with Rigel: Lilly notified the biotech early last month that it would end their partnership on a preclinical CNS disease program. That partnership was part of a deal announced in 2021 . But the companies will still partner on ocadusertib, which is an RIPK1 inhibitor in a Phase 2a study in certain rheumatoid arthritis patients with moderate to severe disease. – Reynald Castaneda 💼 Ultragenyx divests rare disease drug royalties to Canadian pension fund: The biotech will receive $400 million from OMERS. This is in return for a further 25% of Ultragenyx’s royalty interest from Kyowa Kirin on US and Canadian sales of Crysvita. Proceeds from the deal should help fund four of Ultragenyx’s upcoming launches. — Ayisha Sharma 🖊️ Neurocrine signs deal with TransThera: In an agreement worth up to $881.5 million, Neurocrine will have the rights to develop and commercialize the Chinese company’s preclinical NLRP3 inhibitors for a variety of diseases outside Greater China. – Reynald Castaneda 🌕 Moonlake sells $75M in shares: The drugmaker will use the proceeds to support continued development of its nanobody candidate, sonelokimab, for inflammatory diseases, among other purposes. The offering is expected to close on Nov. 6. The company also reported Wednesday that its 16-week data from a Phase 2 trial showed that palmoplantar pustular psoriasis patients treated with sonelokimab had an average 64% reduction in the area and severity of their psoriasis. — Ayisha Sharma 🤝 Kelonia Therapeutics’ new collaborator: Kelonia will be working with Johnson & Johnson to develop in vivo CAR-T therapies. The biotech will contribute the technology to engineer immune cells directly in the body and J&J will pick the targets. Financial and scientific details were not disclosed, but the deal makes J&J the latest entrant in the red-hot field. Four other pharma companies — AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences — have acquired startups working on in vivo cell therapies this year. — Ryan Cross ⏸️ Harmony Biosciences said it is pausing work on ZYN002 for a genetic disorder called 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. The synthetic cannabidiol gel previously failed in a Phase 3 fragile X syndrome study. – Reynald Castaneda

Eli Lilly deepened a partnership with AI drug discovery company XtalPi on Wednesday, whilst pulling back from a $960-million RIPK1 inhibitor development deal with Rigel Pharmaceuticals. The US pharma first partnered with XtalPi in 2023 to use the Chinese firm's AI and robotics to develop small-molecule drug candidates against an undisclosed target in a deal worth up to $250 million. Now, the pair are broadening their collaboration into biologics. Leveraging the AI-powered engineering platform created by XtalPi's subsidiary, Ailux, Lilly will discover and develop bispecific antibodies for "various diseases." Ailux's technology combines computational models, structural modeling and generative design with wet lab capabilities to design molecules capable of engaging "undruggable" targets.According to Ailux CEO Alex Yi Li, its platform can "rapidly engineer panels of monospecific antibodies into bispecifics with superior efficacy and developability."Under the new agreement, Ailux is eligible for up to $345 million, including upfront and near-term payments in the double-digit millions, plus development, regulatory and commercial milestones. In exchange, Lilly can nominate an undisclosed number of target pairs for bispecific antibody design, and also has an option to license Ailux's AI platform for internal use. "We are proud to see Lilly expand this trusted relationship into the biologics space, recognising the potential of our AI-enabled platforms to create transformative therapies," said XtalPi CEO and co-founder Jian Ma. The firm also has discovery deals with Johnson & Johnson's Janssen unit, Pfizer and UCB.Lilly has been steadily ramping up its AI capabilities over the past few years; last month, it teamed up with computing powerhouse NVIDIA to build the industry's "most powerful" supercomputer for AI drug discovery. Slimmed Rigel partnershipMeanwhile, Lilly has ended the central nervous system (CNS) portion of its collaboration with Rigel. In 2021, the pharma paid $125 million upfront to exclusively license the biotech's RIPK1 inhibitors across all indications, including autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, with Rigel eligible for up to $835 million in milestones. Under the agreement, Lilly was responsible for clinical development of brain-penetrating RIPK1 inhibitors in CNS diseases.However, the CNS portion of the agreement has now been binned. Rigel disclosed in its third-quarter earnings report on Tuesday that Lilly has terminated the CNS disease programme.Other aspects of the deal still stand; Lilly is enrolling adults with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis in a Phase II trial of RIPK1 inhibitor ocadusertib (formerly R552/LY3871801).