💊 Takeda splurges billions on psoriasis; Moderna+Merck share positive news from cancer trial

#237 | All bass, no treble

Hello, and welcome back to The Kable, where we have more news about acquisitions and earnings than we've carried all week.

First up, Japan's Takeda, flush from a recent wave of approvals for its dengue vaccine, has handed over $4 billion upfront to acquire one (1) asset from Nimbus. This, the largest single-asset purchase ever for Takeda, was for Nimbus' late-stage TYK2 inhibitor, an oral drug for autoimmune diseases. In recently released topline Phase IIb data for the drug, Nimbus said it helped in moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.

Elsewhere, in an earnings call with investors, Eli Lilly said it expects revenues next year to surpass $30 billion, driven by four new launches and expanded approvals for its newly-launched diabetes drug Mounjaro.

Pfizer, too, had an investor update to share. It expects Covid revenues to decline, especially with Paxlovid not effective against newer variants. However, other mRNA vaccines will help Pfizer achieve annual vaccine sales nearing $15 billion by 2030. The RSV candidate is one of Pfizer's biggest upcoming bets.

Over in Denmark, Novozymes and Chr Hansen are merging to "create a leading global biosolutions partner." No financial terms were disclosed, but the merger is expected to be completed by late 2023/early 2024.

In China, as many experts had predicted, relaxation of Covid norms is seeing hospitals deluged under a surge of Covid infections.

And finally, New Zealand's inventive solution to end smoking in the country kicked off yesterday with a lifetime ban on selling cigarettes to anybody born on or after January 1, 2009.