17th Mar 2025 08:57
(Alliance News) - AstraZeneca PLC on Monday announced an acquisition, a license agreement, regulatory approval in Europe for cancer drug Imfinzi, and a further positive product update in a busy start to the week.
Shares in AstraZeneca were 0.3% lower at 11,953.46 pence each in London on Monday morning.
The Cambridge-based pharmaceuticals maker has agreed to pay up to USD1 billion for EsoBiotec SA on a cash and debt free basis.
This includes an initial payment of USD425 million on deal closing, and up to USD575 million based on development and regulatory milestones.
Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium-based EsoBiotec is a biotechnology company that specialises in vivo cell therapies.
Susan Galbraith, executive vice president of Oncology Haematology R&D at AstraZeneca, believes EsoBiotec has the potential to "transform cell therapy."
"EsoBiotec will accelerate and expand the impact of our recent investments and marks a major step forward in realising our ambition to harness the full potential of cell therapy," she said.
Added EsoBiotec Chief Executive Officer Jean-Pierre Latere: "By combining our expertise and resources, we can accelerate the development of our in vivo platform which has a novel delivery technology we believe will have broad therapeutic applicability."
The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of this year, subject to regulatory clearances. The transaction does not change AstraZeneca's financial guidance for 2025, it said.
In addition, AstraZeneca has entered an exclusive license agreement with South Korea's Alteogen Inc for ALT-B4, a novel hyaluronidase utilising Hybrozyme platform technology.
AstraZeneca will acquire worldwide rights to use ALT-B4 to develop and commercialise subcutaneous formulations of several oncology assets. Alteogen will be responsible for clinical and commercial supply of ALT-B4 to AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca will make an upfront payment to Alteogen and additional payments upon achievement of specific development, regulatory and sales-related milestones. Additionally, Alteogen will receive royalties on the sales of the commercialised products.
This transaction also doesn't affect AstraZeneca’s financial guidance for 2025, the firm added.
Further, AstraZeneca said Imfinzi has been approved in the European Union as monotherapy for the treatment of adults with limited-stage small cell lung cancer whose disease has not progressed following platinum-based chemoradiation therapy.
The approval by the European Commission follows the positive opinion of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use and is based on results from the Adriatic Phase III trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In the trial, results showed Imfinzi reduced the risk of death by 27% versus placebo and also reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 24%.
Imfinzi is approved in the US and several other countries based on the Adriatic results. Regulatory applications are currently under review in Japan and several other countries for this indication.
Finally, AstraZeneca said Eneboparatide has met the primary endpoint of normalising serum calcium in adults with hypoparathyroidism at 24 weeks in the Calypso Phase III trial.
Eneboparatide is an investigational parathyroid hormone receptor 1 agonist for the treatment of chronic hypoparathyroidism.
By Jeremy Cutler, Alliance News reporter
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