Life Science Today

Life Science Today 024 – Vaccine EAU, 70+ IPOs, Gilead

December 14, 2020 Noah Goodson, PhD Season 1 Episode 24
Life Science Today
Life Science Today 024 – Vaccine EAU, 70+ IPOs, Gilead
Show Notes Transcript

Originally Published as The Niche Podcast

Vaccines are here, capitalizing on capital with IPOs, and Gilead targets Hepatitis D.



Sponsors
https://www.thescopemethod.com


Story References
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-takes-key-action-fight-against-covid-19-issuing-emergency-use-authorization-first-covid-19
https://www.abcellera.com/news/2020-12-10-abcellera-announces-pricing-of-ipo
https://www.certara.com/pressrelease/certara-announces-pricing-of-its-upsized-initial-public-offering/
https://ir.4dmoleculartherapeutics.com/news-releases/news-release-details/4d-molecular-therapeutics-announces-upsized-pricing-initial
https://www.nanobiotix.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/PR-Pricing.pdf
https://www.gilead.com/news-and-press/press-room/press-releases/2020/12/gilead-sciences-to-acquire-myr-gmbh


Music by Luke Goodson
https://www.soundcloud.com/lukegoodson

 
Life Science Today is your source for stories, insights, and trends across the life science industry. Expect weekly highlights about new technologies, pharmaceutical mergers and acquisitions, news about the moves of venture capital and private equity, and how the stock market responds to biotech IPOs. Life Science Today also explores trends around clinical research, including the evolving patterns that determine how drugs and therapies are developed and approved. It’s news, with a dash of perspective, focused on the life science industry.

Introduction

Welcome to The Niche Podcast – Your weekly rundown of the biotech, clinical research, and applied science industries. I’m your host, Dr. Noah Goodson. This week, vaccines are here, capitalizing on capital with IPOs, and Gilead targets Hepatitis D. 


Pfizer receives EAU for COVID19 Vaccine

The Pfizer/BioNTech COVID19 vaccine has received emergency use authorization (EAU) from the FDA. EAU is not full market approval, and Pfizer is set to continue the Phase 3 trial to collect additional data over the coming months. However, EAU is a huge step on the journey. The approval in the United States over the weekend follows on the heals of approval in the United Kingdom last week and probable approval in Europe this week. Moderna, with a similarly designed mRNA vaccine will likely garner approval before the end of year, and perhaps even this next week. 

Vaccinations will start today across the United States. We mentioned last week the probability of mixed signals and confusion. While the CDC has given suggested guidelines for vaccination in the United States, significant portions of distribution have been left up to individual states. This means is there is not a standarized order of operations nationally for who should get vaccinated when, where the vaccine should be shipped, and how the pipeline can be secured. Yes, individual agencies, hospitals, and regions are attempting to organize, but without a clear national mandate some chaos and mixed cues are inevitable. 

With more than 16 million Americans infected this year and thousands dying daily, a streamlined vaccination process will be critical to combating this deadly illness. Keep an eye on your states’ public health department to know what to expect in your region. 


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70+ Life Science IPOs in 2020 – More to Come

Markets are at an all time. More eyes than ever are on the biotech world. Together, this means money is flooding in. We’ve talked about the billions being raised in private funding rounds. But companies are also going public at an unprecedented rate. This year, more than 70 life science companies have gone through an IPO (initial public offering). Just last week, four more companies followed suit including 4D Molecular Therapeutics raising $193 million for AAV based gene therapies and Nanobiotix pulled in $99 million for nano-particle based head and neck cancers. 

Of specific note were two major players last week. First, AbCellera has partnered with Eli Lilly to deliver the FDA approved antibody treatment to COVID19, bamlanivimab. This pushed their IPO up 24% for a total of $483 million. The $20 per share price immediately skyrocketed to close around over $50 per share on Friday. With 950,000 doses of bamlanivimab on order from the United States with a price tag of around $1250/dose, AbCellera is set for success, provided they can ramp up production to meet the need. 

Certara is a biosimulation company that helps design and streamline the developmental lifecycle of drugs. They claim that since 2014, 90% of FDA approved drugs utilized their software or services prior to approval. Based on their market ubiquity, they pulled in $668 million IPO last week with a company valuation of $3.5 billion.  

Expect several more life-science IPOs before the end of the year as companies take advantage of the current investment climate to raise capital. 


Gilead Acquires MYR Pharmaceuticals and Stays in Liver Space

Gilead has acquired MYR Pharmaceuticals for 1.15 billion euros. The deal gives Gilead complete control over the Europe-approved therapy for Hepatitis D, Hepcludex. Individuals with Hepatitis B are susceptible to infection with Hepatitis D, which has a 50% mortality rate. Hepcludex blocks Hepatitis D from entering the liver, providing critical protection to at-risk individuals. Long run, Gilead plans to apply for us in the United States as well.

The acquisition of MYR (a company, not a therapy) by Gilead signals their continued interest in liver disease. While the last few years have seen Gilead place increased focus on the oncology and cell/immunotherapy space, this move suggests they want to keep their portfolio diverse with therapeutics aimed at the liver to add to their work with HIV and inflammatory diseases. Of course, the advent of COVID19 and the success of remdesivir have likely caused some minor rebranding for Gilead. However, I doubt this signals any major pivot in their focus, despite the billion-euro price tag. More likely they see Hepcludex and the rest of the MYR pipeline melding with their extant therapeutics. My guess is a lot of these short-term successes will pull them through till they can get the next Biktarvy (Gilead’s $5 billion/year+ HIV therapy). Based on their investment targets they are probably looking for more than one $10 billion/year+ therapies, like Merck’s Keytruda or AbbVie’s Humira. Based on all of this, the acquisition of MYR feels more like portfolio rounding rather than direction setting.  

 

Closing Credits

Thanks for joining me on The Niche Podcast; your weekly summary of top news in the biotech, clinical trials, and applied science industries. You can find us on your favorite podcast app. Like, comment, subscribe, and most of all share with your friends. If you like what you hear, please rate and review, it really helps us. Once again, I’m Dr. Noah Goodson, I’ll see you next week.