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June 9, 2020 Bioscience Notebook

BioCT stands with BLM; Melinta wins bidding war; Alexion settles patent threat

PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED Dawn Hocevar of Branford is president and CEO of BioCT, the state's largest association of bioscience companies.
By Natalie Missakian

A statewide advocacy group for Connecticut’s bioscience industry pledged solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement on Monday, emphasizing its commitment to address racism in the wake of protests over George Floyd’s death.

“Our nation is sick with the COVID-19 pandemic and a disease called racism,” read a letter from BioCT President and CEO Dawn Hocevar and the organization’s board of directors. “This is a critical time for change, real change, not just words but action and we believe our industry has an obligation to be part of the solution in finding new ways to build inclusivity.” 

“BLACK LIVES MATTER and BioCT is committed to addressing racism through members’ employment practices, their development of therapeutics to benefit all patients and our support of educational and job initiatives that promote inclusive economic opportunity,” the letter continued. 

BioCT said its mission is “to collaborate to find cures and create a thriving community to improve patients’ lives and public health and drive economic growth.”

“How can this community achieve this mission and be successful if we don’t change the status quo that is harming people, rather than improving their lives?” the letter asked, pointing to the disproportionate share of COVID-19 deaths in minority communities.

The group said the CEO of its national parent organization would lead a virtual panel discussion on equity, inclusion and diversity with black biotechnology leaders during this week’s Bio Digital 2020 convention, a virtual gathering of some 6,500 life-science industry professionals. 

The discussion, “Leading Through Crisis: Speaking Up and Out on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Issues Impacting our World,” will take place Thursday from 3 to 4 p.m. (EDT). Click HERE for more information.

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A reorganized Melinta Therapeutics has won its nearly month-long bidding war with a California biotech, inking a deal to buy a Massachusetts antibiotics maker for up to $55 million.

New Haven-born Melinta will pay $39 million up front for Watertown, Mass.-based Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, plus an additional $16 million if  its antibiotic Xerava achieves certain sales milestones.

Tetraphase accepted Melinta’s bid last Thursday, ending an earlier agreement with California’s AcelRx after that company declined to counter Melinta’s third and most recent offer. 

AcelRx had signed a deal in March to buy Tetraphase for up to $26.9 million (including $14.4 million up front), and had boosted that offer to up to $50.1 million ($33.3 million upfront) in response to Melinta’s interest. Tetraphase will pay AcelRx a $1.78 million termination fee to get out of the deal. 

New Jersey-based Melinta is now privately owned by health-care investment fund Deerfield Management and announced it was eyeing an expansion of its drug pipeline after emerging from bankruptcy in April.

Jennifer Sanfilippo, Melinta’s interim CEO, said Xerava complements Melinta’s commercial antibiotics Baxdela, Orbactiv, Minocin and Vabomere. The FDA approved Xerava in 2018 to treat intra-abdominal infections.

The acquisition is expected to close during the third quarter of this year, subject to closing conditions. 

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Alexion Pharmaceuticals has settled a patent dispute over its blockbuster drug Soliris — buying it time to switch patients to its newer drug Ultomiris.

California-based biotech giant Amgen Inc. has been developing a drug that is biologically similar to Soliris and had filed challenges to Alexion’s patent with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. 

The settlement gives Amgen a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to manufacture and market its drug to treat the rare blood disease paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria beginning March 1, 2025, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other details of the settlement were not disclosed.

Alexion currently has market exclusivity for Soliris, its chief money-maker that generated $3.95 billion in sales in 2019. 

The New Haven-born company, which still has a substantial Elm City research presence, has been trying to lessen its dependence on Soliris through M&A deals and by eventually converting patients to Ultomiris, which was approved in 2018 and is similar to Soliris but administered less frequently.

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Shelton’s NanoViricides said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with West Haven’s TheraCour Pharma Inc. giving it a limited, exclusive license to research and development toward human testing on antiviral treatments for COVID-19.

Privately-owned TheraCour is controlled by Anil R. Diwan, who is also co-founder, president and chairman for NanoViricides and developed its nanomedicine technology. NanoViricides said Diwan recused himself from discussion on the MoU and licensing agreements. The company said it plans to retain an independent consultant to evaluate its assets to develop the full license agreement.  

The company has been working on developing a drug for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, since January, building on earlier work on a treatment for another coronavirus that causes MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome). That work was discontinued after the MERS virus dissipated. 

The company says it has identified potential anti-COVID drug candidates worthy of human testing based on their effectiveness against similar coronaviruses in lab and animal studies. Nanoviricides drugs work by trapping virus particles the way a “Venus fly trap” flower engulfs an insect. 

Contact Natalie Missakian at news@newhavenbiz.com

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