1-31 December 2018, the period covered by this article, was again a very interesting period for activity under the therapeutic delivery umbrella, being a particularly solid month for business activity, notably a major acquisition by GSK to expand its oncology portfolio. This was, as it later turns out, the first of several very significant mergers and acquisitions around the turn of the year in the oncology area, more of which will appear in future articles. In that acquisition, the acquisition of Potenza Therapeutics (MA, USA) by Astellas Pharma Inc. (Tokyo, Japan), Amgen's (CA, USA) collaboration with Molecular Partners (Zurich, Switzerland), the partnership between Domain Therapeutics (Strasbourg, France) and Boehringer Ingelheim (Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany), and the deal between Argenx (Breda, The Netherlands) and Cilag GmbH International (Zug, Switzerland), all announced in the month, demonstrated the high continued interest within industry around the development of immuno-oncology therapeutics. Additionally, activity around therapeutic delivery technologies was prominent in the news, for example the Amgen/Entera Bio (Jerusalem, Israel) deal around oral delivery of large molecules, Entrada Therapeutic's (MA, USA) successful acquisition of funding to advance its work on intracellular delivery of biologics, Impel NeuroPharma's (WA, USA) securing of support continue its development of its nose-to-brain delivery pipeline, US FDA approval of inhaled levodopa from Acorda Therapeutics Inc. (NY, USA) and a sublingual delivery technology for dexmedetomidine under development by BioXcel Therapeutics (CT, USA) being advanced into clinical evaluation were just some of the items noted. As always, information sources employed to provide the materials used in compiling this update included company press releases, conference news and other news websites.
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Jan 10, 2024
Peter Timmins 
Open Access