BACKGROUND
Week where several midpharma’s of Spain have presented their results for 2017, making evaluations of their performances during last year.
Oryzon Genomics was the first, publishing on Monday its review of 2017. Apart from showing Profit and Loss Statement (P&L) and Balance Sheet (BS) not much assessment was done. Only a brief sentence where the company argues an improve in the Net Incomes compared to 2016 and, that the result is logic considering the biotechnology business model where you have an initial development of products phase without much revenues. More information on Oryzon’s web.
Rovi’s turn on Tuesday, 20th when the publication of company’s full Year 2017 results could become a drop of its share’s value in the stock market as they show a fall in net incomes comparing with 2016. However, the company seems it’s going to close this February near its maximum historic of 17,07 € per share marked on June of 2017. Analyzing its P&L statement, we can confirm a reduction of 34% in the net income. However, this reduction contrasts with the growth of 4% in total revenues and the reduction of 2% in the cost of sales. So, the reduction in the final result comes basically from the big amount invested in R&D, where its expenses during the 2017 were of 28,3 million € (increment of 62% versus 2016) and the growth of 6% in Selling, General and Administrative expenses (SG&A). More information on Rovi’s web.
Closing the week, Almirall’s press release on Friday summarized its 2017 financial results. Drastic reduction in net result of a 67% compared to 2016. Even the major cause of this retreat in its incomes is the reduction in Net Sales of almost 130M €, good news for its other incomes results as they increment a 22,7%, basically due to milestones reached by aclidinium, licensed to AstraZeneca, and other events. Peter Guenter, CEO of the company since october 2017, claimed it was a challenging year for Almirall and even it did not progress as it was initially expected, mid-year measures permitted the company to reach the reevaluated objectives and gives them the confidence to face 2018. At the same time these news were published, Almirall’s value per share on Spanish stock market felt from 8,60€ to 7,84€, closing the session at 8,18€. More information on Almirall’s web.
SIDEGROUND
Three major fronts in the field of Big Companies. On Friday last week, Novartis seemed to retreat its position in generics in US. Grifols stars the other story of the week as the possible entrance of a competitor in Spain made its stock market valuation fall on last days of the week. Also in this section, Astrazeneca won a battle against Merck and Pfizer.
Friday 16th, Reuters announced Novartis AG was preparing to auction its US generic pill business, looking to shed a unit that has struggled a fierce price competition. Reuters also estimate a price for the division of up to 1,6 B$, or at least, this is what its sources said. Novartis declined any comment on the news. This assumption could well be truth if we look at what other big pharma’s have been doing, as we explained two weeks ago that Sanofi was thinking about selling its generic division.
After the busy week of 29th of January, Grifols seemed to be recovering from fatal events after FDA approval for its rabies treatment announced last week. But, hard times may last longer than what the company expected as CSL Behring, global leader of hemoderivatives market, is trying to end with the monopoly of Grifols in Spain. CSL Behring has accused the Catalan company to breached part of the agreement it has with the Health Ministry. This dispute, joined to the bad expectations on the results are going to be presented on Wednesday 28th, had made fall Grifols share value during the week. El Economista informed.
Last but not less, Labiotech informed on Wedenesday about the FDA approval of Astrazeneca’s Imfinzi (durvalumab), checkpoint inhibitor that targets the immune regulatory molecule PD-L1 for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. This approval came one day after the rejection by the forementioned FDA for Merck’s and Pfizer’s Bavencio, similar treatment for the same indication. Competitive advantage for Astrazeneca in the lung cancer treatment market.
In the Mid companies section, Almirall gains all the attention again as it was known this week that its agreement with Sinclair in US has came to an end. This results in an economical compensation for the Catalan company as the initial agreement was supposed to last until 2020. Informed PlantaDoce.
Some action during the week in the start-up’s ecosystem. Atrys Health did close, in the previous week, a capital increase of 4M € which together with other two rounds makes a total of 13,15M €. Santiago Torres, CEO of Atrys, valued positively this ended phase and predicts some strategic acquisitions.
Ability Pharma captured all the lights on Monday as they published in its own web that FDA had approved a phase I/IIa trial to asses the efficacy and safety of ABTL0812 in combination with Gemcitabine and Nab-paclitaxel (Standard of Care) in advanced metastatic pancreatic cancer. Time to work with US medical community to start the clinical development, as Carles Domènech, CEO of Ability Pharma, said.
Mastertech Capital is a venture capital (VC) which operates investing its funds in other VC’s specialized in tech start-up’s. Launched at the end of 2016 by Talenta, it has invested in 8 different VC’s until the moment. Informed Capital-Riesgo on Monday.
Finally, on Thursday, Expansion informed that Thrombotargets had opened a 5,5M € financial round among investors who already had shares of the company, although they don’t discard to include new shareholders.
To end the section, labiotech published a great review of the “Europe’s best funded biotech in 2018”. Nice reading to be updated of the biotech sector. Immunotherapies and personalized medicine approaches dominates the list.
And let’s go to the field of merch and acquisitions!
Astellas acquires Universal Cells, Inc. and enables the investigation of innovative cell therapy treatments for various disease that currently have few or no treatment options. Thus, Universal Cells became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Astellas following the close of the acquisition. Informed El Global on Monday, although the acquisition was announced by the company on 13th of February.
Upfront and milestones: Up to 102,5M €
Roche to acquire Flatiron Health, Inc. in the first half of 2018. This agreement will supposed the merge with privately healthcare technology and services company, which is a market leader in oncology-specific electronic health record software. A step in Roche’s personalized healthcare strategy, as Daniel O’day, CEO of Roche Pharmaceuticals, said. Informed El Economista on 16th of February.
Existing equity stake by Roche: 12,6%
Payment for TOTAL acquisition: 1,9B USD$
Close to the end of the week, Kite Pharma (acquired by Gilead last summer) licensed-in all the rights for the use of Sangamos Therapeutics’ zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) technology in the development of next-generation CAR-T therapies. Informed FierceBiotech on Thursday.
Upfront: 150 M USD$
Milestones: Up to 3 B USD$
FORECAST
What to expect now? El País informed last weekend about the intention of the government to close a deal for the Science sector in Spain. Shy moves from the public authorities to boost the investment in R+D, but still not enough to make of Spain the tech and science hub it could become.
Needless to be said, next week on Barcelona you can attend to the Mobile World Congress (MWC) and also to the side event 4 Years From Now (4YFN). Nice venues to visit and meet great entrepreneurs in the field of science but also in other technologies.
BIOnews Week Summary 