License to Pill: Pfizer's 6 agreements among Big Pharma frenzy of new year deals

Pfizer Inc. signed six drug license and development agreements during a blizzard of deal-making by Big Pharma in the first two weeks of 2022.

The U.S. pharmaceutical giant made the two largest up-front payments of Jan. 1-14, including $300 million to the U.K.'s Beam Therapeutics Inc., as part of a four-year collaboration to target liver, muscle and central nervous system conditions. The collaboration will harness Beam's DNA editing techniques, which involve lipid nanoparticles as well as messenger RNA — technology that has gained global prominence as a result of Pfizer's own COVID-19 vaccine.

Pfizer agreed to pay its partner on the COVID-19 shot, BioNTech SE, $225 million up front as part of a new collaboration to develop the first mRNA vaccine for shingles. Pfizer also secured an agreement to apply Codex DNA Inc.'s enzymatic DNA synthesis technology to its own mRNA vaccine pipeline.

A $25 million up-front deal with Californian biotech Dren Bio Inc. is focused on finding bispecific antibodies for Pfizer to treat types of cancer. The New York-based company also paid PostEra $13 million up front as part of an agreement to create an AI Lab where the two companies can develop cancer drugs and COVID-19 antivirals.

Several pharma companies announced more than one deal over the period, including Bristol Myers Squibb Co., which paid $150 million in cash and equity investment to Philadelphia-based biotech Century Therapeutics Inc. for four cell-engineered cancer therapies. Bristol Myers also signed an agreement with Hayward, Calif.-based Prellis Biologics Inc. to develop antibodies for a range of targets.

One of Sanofi's two deals saw France's largest pharmaceutical company pay $100 million up front to use Exscientia PLC's AI-driven platform to develop up to 15 small molecule candidates across oncology and immunology, building on a partnership dating back to 2016. The Paris-based company also made a $75 million up-front payment to South Korea's ABL Bio Inc. to develop and commercialize ABL301, a preclinical therapy for Parkinson's disease.

AstraZeneca PLC made its own $75 million payment as part of a collaboration with Boston-based Scorpion Therapeutics Inc. to discover and commercialize precision medicines against previously hard-to-target cancer proteins. The British drugmaker also sold an early-stage epilepsy therapy to New York-based Ovid Therapeutics Inc.

Meanwhile, AstraZeneca's rare-disease unit Alexion made a $30 million up-front deal with Swiss biotech Neurimmune AG to develop and commercialize NI006, a human monoclonal antibody in early-stage trials for a potentially fatal heart muscle disease.

Amgen Inc. agreed to pay Arrakis Therapeutics Inc. $75 million as part of a collaboration to discover and develop RNA degrader therapeutics for a range of targets. The Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based biotech giant also agreed to pay $50 million up front to Generate Biomedicines Inc. to collaborate on protein therapeutics for five clinical unspecified targets.

Other high-value deals for the two-week period include Biogen Inc.'s $60 million up-front payment for Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s preclinical spinal muscular atrophy drug, Moderna Inc.'s combined $80 million up-front payment and investment in CARISMA Therapeutics Inc. to develop cell therapies for cancer, and Novartis AG's CHF150 million to Molecular Partners AG to in-license ensovibep after the COVID-19 antiviral reported positive phase 2 trial results.