Today, a brief rundown of news involving Eli Lilly and Immunovant, as well as updates from Roche, Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Vertex Pharmaceuticals that you may have missed.
Eli Lilly will spend $100 million up front, and possibly $3.25 billion more, on another alliance centered around drugs from China. Beijing-based InnoCare Pharma didn’t reveal which diseases are the focus of the deal it announced Thursday with Lilly. But InnoCare’s focus is cancer and autoimmune disease, and the companies said the partnership will involve compounds against up to five targets. The deal is Lilly’s fourth with a China-based drugmaker since the start of 2025, following pacts with Insilico Medicine, Innovent Biologics and Haisco Pharmaceutical Group, according to BioPharma Dive data.
Shares of Immunovant and majority owner Roivant both ticked down on Wednesday after Immunovant reported a study setback in lupus. Immunovant said it will stop developing its drug IMVT-1402 in cutaneous lupus erythematosus — a kind of lupus that affects the skin — after the therapy missed its mark in a proof-of-concept trial. However, Immunovant added that all other clinical timelines for IMVT-1402, which is being tested against several other autoimmune conditions, remain “on track.” In a note to investors, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Prakhar Agrawal argued that there is “no read-through to other more important indications” for Immunovant’s drug, which include Graves disease and Sjögren’s syndrome.
A dual-acting obesity drug from Roche helped Type 2 diabetics who also have obesity or are overweight control blood sugar and drop weight in a Phase 2 trial. Patients receiving the highest dose of enicepatide, which Roche acquired in a buyout of Carmot Therapeutics, saw their HbA1c levels drop by 2.65 percentage points after 48 weeks. By that time, drug recipients on that high dose had lost an average of 15.5% of their body weight, “without a demonstrable plateau,” Roche said Tuesday. Some 2% of patients stopped treatment due to side effects, versus none in the placebo group. Roche is looking to its obesity drug portfolio to boost revenue growth in the years ahead. Two late-stage trials of enicepatide are ongoing, and more are planned for next year.
An RNA drug codeveloped by Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Ionis Pharmaceuticals will be submitted to regulators after it succeeded in a Phase 3 trial in people with a rare form of ALS. The drug, called ulefnersen, was tested against a placebo in people whose ALS is linked to a mutation in the "FUS" gene. Otsuka said Tuesday that ulefnersen met its main objective as well as key secondary goals, with treatment leading to statistically significant improvements on measures of function and survival over the course of 505 days. The results represented one of two late-stage study successes this week for an Ionis-partnered treatment. However, TD Cowen analyst Phil Nadeau wrote that ulefnersen's commercial value is likely “incremental' for Ionis, as some estimates suggest fewer than 200 patients in the U.S. have FUS-ALS. Ionis will get sales royalties through its collaboration with Otsuka.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals released updated study results on Tuesday that some analysts viewed as an encouraging sign for one of its top prospects. Vertex is developing that drug, inaxaplin, for people with kidney disease linked to mutations in the “APOL1” gene. A late-stage study is underway, with results expected next year. Ahead of that readout, the company reported new Phase 2 data in people with type 2 diabetes or "modest" but still elevated levels of protein in the urine. Vertex disclosed a 45% reduction of urine protein in the latter group after 13 weeks, an "important" finding that "de-risk[s]" the late-stage trial and "expands the potential addressable opportunity for inaxaplin," wrote UBS Securities analyst Michael Yee. Yee added that several studies have suggested around 80% of patients with APOL1-mediated kidney disease have this modest proteinuria.
