Industry Update

The month of May 2014 brought the news that AstraZeneca had rejected Pfizer's last and final offer to take over the company, while Valeant's attempts to acquire Allergan continued (both topics are covered in detail in last month's edition of Therapeutic Delivery). Companies that did agree to work together in May, at least in the form of licensing and collaboration agreements, included Avalanche and Regeneron (gene therapy via an adeno-associated virus-based delivery system), AADi and Celgene (in-licensing of sirolimus or rapamycin, formulated as albumin-bound nanoparticles), AntiOp and Reckitt Benckiser (nasal naloxone), Bristol-Myers Squibb and CytomX (Probody™ antibodies against immuno-oncology targets) and PolyTherics and Alpha Cancer Technologies (novel drug conjugates of alpha-fetoprotein). May also brought good news for Veloxis in the form of a positive opinion from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use for its MeltDose ® formulation of tacrolimus, and for RXi Pharmaceuticals which received a Notice of Allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office on a key patent for its self-delivering RNAi technology.