On January 23, 2020 Onconova Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: ONTX), a Phase 3-stage biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing novel products to treat cancer, with an initial focus on myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), reported that it has regained the rights to rigosertib in Greater China (Press release, Onconova, JAN 23, 2020, View Source [SID1234553440]). Onconova regained the rights from HanX Biopharmaceuticals (HanX) as a result of the termination of the Onconova-HanX License Agreement pursuant to its terms due to HanX failing to make required payments under the agreement. In exchange for transition assistance and upon further regulatory, development and commercial progress in Greater China, HanX may be eligible to receive from Onconova incentive milestones and royalty payments. The Greater China territory, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, represents one of the key world pharmaceutical markets.

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"We are pleased to regain rigosertib rights for Greater China, and we are encouraged by the opportunity to partner rigosertib in select territories including Greater China as we approach the potential corporate catalyst of topline data for the registrational INSPIRE Trial in 1H 2020," said Dr. Steven Fruchtman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Onconova. "We thank HanX for their collaborative efforts to advance rigosertib in this key market including the filing of the rigosertib IND in China." Dr. Fruchtman continued, "In 2019, we added partners Knight Therapeutics for Canada, Specialised Therapeutics for Australia & New Zealand, and Inceptua Medicines Access in select countries for pre-approval access to our roster of global corporate partners, joining Pint Pharma for Latin America and SymBio Pharmaceuticals for Japan & Korea. The United States, Europe, and Greater China represent the major pharmaceutical markets Onconova directly controls heading into INSPIRE data read out."

On January 23, 2020 Hutchison China MediTech Limited ("Chi-Med") (AIM/Nasdaq: HCM) reported the pricing of the underwritten public offering previously announced by Chi-Med on January 21, 2020 (Press release, Hutchison China MediTech, JAN 23, 2020, https://www.chi-med.com/chi-med-announces-pricing-of-us110-million-public-offering-of-adss/ [SID1234553438]). Chi-Med will issue and sell 4,400,000 American Depositary Shares ("ADSs"), each representing five ordinary shares, par value US$0.10 each, of Chi-Med at a price of US$25.00 per ADS on the Nasdaq Global Select Market ("Offering"). The gross proceeds to Chi-Med from the Offering, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses, are expected to be approximately US$110 million. In addition, Chi-Med has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 660,000 ADSs at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. The Offering is expected to close on January 27, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions.

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Chi-Med will receive all of the net proceeds from the sale of ADSs in the Offering, which it intends to use primarily to fund its ongoing research and clinical development efforts and expand its commercialization capabilities.

BofA Securities, Inc., Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C. and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC (in alphabetical order) are acting as joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners for the Offering. Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. are acting as joint bookrunners, and Canaccord Genuity LLC, CLSA Limited and Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited are acting as co-managers.

On January 23, 2020 Amgen Inc. (Headquarters: Thousand Oaks, California, USA; Chairman and CEO: Robert A. Bradway; "Amgen"), Astellas Pharma Inc. (Headquarters: Tokyo; President and CEO: Kenji Yasukawa, PhD., "Astellas"), and Amgen Astellas BioPharma K.K. (Headquarters: Tokyo; President and Representative Director: Steve Sugino; "Amgen Astellas BioPharma") reported that on April 1, 2020, Amgen will purchase the 49% of shares in Amgen Astellas BioPharma that are held by Astellas, based on the strategic alliance contract signed between Amgen and Astellas in 2013, making the company a wholly owned Amgen affiliate (Press release, Astellas, JAN 23, 2020, View Source [SID1234553437]).

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With this, Amgen Astellas BioPharma will change its name to Amgen K.K., and simultaneously relocate its Headquarters to Tokyo Midtown (9-7-1 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo). Steve Sugino will continue to serve as President and Representative Director of Amgen K.K.

Amgen Astellas BioPharma commenced business in October 2013, bringing together the strengths of Amgen, one of the world’s leading independent biotechnology companies, and Astellas, a company with deep knowledge of the medical needs in Japan and a wealth of experience in the development and marketing of pharmaceutical products, as well as a strong business foundation, to contribute to healthcare in Japan through the provision of innovative medicines created by Amgen.

Since then, Amgen Astellas BioPharma and Astellas have worked together to serve patients in Japan with cardiovascular disease, cancer, and bone disease, which are three areas of significant unmet medical needs, launching Repatha for familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) or hypercholesterolemia for patients who have high cardiovascular event risk and do not adequately respond to HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, BLINCYTO for patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and EVENITY for osteoporosis patients at high risk of fracture. Amgen K.K. and Astellas will continue to co-promote these three products and Astellas will remain responsible for distribution and sales of the products beyond 2020.

Amgen K.K. will carry forward Amgen’s global mission to serve patients by delivering breakthrough-science-based medicines, while also striving to bring Amgen’s full global pipeline of innovative medicines to patients in Japan who face unmet medical needs.

On January 23, 2020 AskAt reported that it received a Notice of Allowance dated January 14, 2020 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in connection with Application No. 16/417,870, a use patent for AskAt’s EP4 receptor antagonists in the treatment of NASH-associated liver cancer AskAt received a Notice of Allowance dated January 14, 2020 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in connection with Application No. 16/417,870, a use patent for AskAt’s EP4 receptor antagonists in the treatment of NASH-associated liver cancer.

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On January 23, 2020 Evotec SE (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, MDAX/TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809) and Indivumed GmbH ("Indivumed") reported that the companies have entered into a new research collaboration to discover and develop first-in-class therapeutics for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer ("NSCLC") (Press release, Evotec, JAN 23, 2020, View Source;announcements/press-releases/p/evotec-and-indivumed-announce-second-joint-drug-discovery-programme-5903 [SID1234553435]). The final goal of this precision medicine collaboration is to deliver highly effective treatments for NSCLC patients.

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The collaboration will combine Evotec’s proprietary bioinformatics analysis platform "PanHunter," as well as its small molecule and antibody discovery platforms, with the NSCLC cohort of Indivumed’s true multi-omics cancer database "IndivuType," and its advanced analytics and AI capabilities.

This agreement follows the successful progress of the companies’ previous joint drug discovery programme in the field of colorectal cancer, which was first announced in April 2019 and identified several novel drug targets by September 2019 that will be used in the development of new treatments for the disease. Working together, both parties will jointly invest in data analysis, target identification, validation and subsequent drug discovery. Evotec will be responsible for subsequent partnering of the programmes and the platform.

Dr Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, commented: "We are excited to add this new discovery programme to our successful precision medicine collaboration with Indivumed. We are confident that combining the highly complementary strengths of our companies will generate innovative drug candidates for clearly defined patient populations within non-small cell lung cancer who urgently need effective treatments."

"We are delighted by this new collaboration with Evotec," said Prof. Dr Hartmut Juhl, CEO of Indivumed. "The fast and successful development of our previous joint colorectal cancer programme has led to this new agreement, less than twelve months after the first one. Together we will discover and develop novel drugs for the treatment of NSCLC, using as a starting point our IndivuType multi-omics platform."

Indivumed’s focus on generating comprehensive high-quality oncology patient data is complementary to Evotec’s capabilities in multi-omics data analysis and novel platforms for the generation of first-in-class and clearly differentiated small molecule and antibody therapies. No financial details of the agreement were disclosed.