China's Fosun rallies support for a joint bid for Bayer's animal health unit: report

fiercepharma | June 18, 2019

As Bayer management predicted, it seems as though the German conglomerate’s for-sale animal health business has indeed attracted high interest. China’s Fosun International, parent of Fosun Pharma, is considering teaming up with private equity firms or other investors for a joint offer for Bayer’s animal health business, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. No formal bid has been made, deliberations are at an early stage and Fosun might still decide against it, the people said, according to the news service. The potentially €8 billion sale has reportedly attracted private equity firms KKR, CVC Capital Partners, Cinven, Advent International, BC Partners and Permira, among others, either as solo bidders or in joint pursuits. If successful, the takeover would mark another major deal for Fosun since it shelled out $1.1 billion for a 74% stake in India’s injectables-focused Gland Pharma in 2017. Outside of life sciences, the Chinese conglomerate in 2018 snapped up a majority stake in French legacy fashion house Lanvin, but that was a smaller acquisition financially.

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Rancho BioSciences Welcomes BenevolentAI as Fifth Member of SCDS Consortium

Rancho BioSciences | February 02, 2023

On February 1, 2023, Rancho Biosciences, a leading provider of data sciences services, announced that BenevolentAI has joined the SCDS consortium as its fifth member. Rancho Biosciences launched its Single Cell Data Science (SCDS) pre-competitive consortium on February 26, 2022, with four Charter Members: Bristol Myers Squibb, Janssen Research & Development LLC, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies, Novartis, and Vesalius Therapeutics. The consortium's mission is to establish a uniform industry standard for creating and formatting single-cell datasets through a systematic effort to build data models and ensure that public data are curated consistently. Due to the evident impact of single-cell transcriptomics technology on drug discovery, pharmaceutical firms continue to adopt single-cell sequencing techniques at an exponential rate. The availability of ever-increasing volumes of single-cell datasets in the public domain enables pharmaceutical companies to vastly increase their universe of single-cell experiments over those generated internally. However, harnessing this enormous public data lake by locating, downloading, and curating single-cell data is difficult and time-consuming compared to the resources required for scientists to analyze data to derive value for biomedical research collectively. To date, Rancho has provided 83 analysis-ready datasets by using its extensive curation knowledge and expertise. Each dataset contains 79 columns of curated metadata that have been verified against a 4-entity data model developed by Rancho for SCDS. Based on member priorities, Rancho will continue to contribute a steady stream of harmonized single-cell datasets to the consortium. With this shared cost model, these may be supplied at a far higher throughput and much more cost-effectively than a single company could do. About Rancho BioSciences Founded in 2012, Rancho BioSciences is a global fee-for-service data curation firm that provides analysis and development services to clients, including pharma, foundations, government, and biotech. With a global team of qualified Ph.D. and Ph.D./MD scientists that provide high-quality work based on their expertise and domain knowledge in biology, diseases, and clinical data, it strives to find cures for diseases by serving its clients and saving lives through Data. It aims to be the world's leading provider of data services and harness domain skills and expertise to address complex problems.

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BUSINESS INSIGHTS, PHARMA TECH

Neochromosome Announces Successful Collaboration with Sumitovant Biopharma

Sumitovant Biopharma, Inc. | January 20, 2023

On January 19, 2023, Neochromosome, Inc., announced a partnership with Sumitovant Biopharma, Inc., a technology-driven biopharmaceutical firm expediting the discovery and commercialization of novel therapeutics. This collaboration blends Neochromosome's neoYeast™ platform with Sumitovant's DrugOME™ computational ecosystem to identify new proteins that would benefit from non-canonical amino acid chemistries that are unavailable in nature. As part of the collaboration, Sumitovant used a combination of natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and computational algorithms to identify opportunities for Neochromosome to enhance the discovery and production of proteins limited by evolution and traditional fabrication processes. For example, non-canonical amino acid inclusion allows new-to-nature proteins with improved structures and functions but often requires chemical synthesis, which is expensive, size- and complexity-restricted, and environmentally damaging. neoYeast™, based on Neochromosome's world-leading genome-scale cell engineering technology stack, enables the highly efficient and environmentally friendly integration of non-canonical amino acids into proteins, with both discovery and manufacturing possible in a single genome-engineered yeast strain. Sumitovant used DrugOME to explore libraries of traditional and non-traditional sources of data to recommend targeted protein development candidates for neoYeast. Co-Founder and CEO of Neochromosome, Leslie Mitchell, commented, "The combination of Sumitovant's technology platform and life-sciences expertise with Neochromosome's ability to both discover and biomanufacture novel proteins in a single system enables Neochromosome to accelerate and streamline the delivery of better therapies for patients." She added, "We are excited to partner with the world-class team at Sumitovant to identify opportunities to create better versions of existing drugs, along with new-to-nature compounds, and to manufacture them efficiently at scale." (Source – Business Wire) Sumitovant Biopharma, Inc. The firm has supported the development of multiple FDA-approved products and a strong pipeline of early-through late-stage investigational assets addressing unmet needs in pediatrics, oncology, urology, women's health, specialty respiratory, and infectious diseases through its proprietary computing and data platforms, scientific expertise, and diverse company portfolio. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Pharma.

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Certara Acquires AI Company Vyasa to Boost Scientific Innovation

Certara | January 05, 2023

Certara, Inc. announced the acquisition of Vyasa Analytics, LLC, which offers scalable deep-learning software that enables life sciences enterprises to make predictions and answer complicated queries across structured and unstructured bio-medical data. The acquisition will improve Certara's software by giving its end-to-end platform cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) features. Certara said it was excited to announce that it had bought Vyasa, a cutting-edge company that would improve its software platforms and give it more options across many product lines. It went on to say that by introducing AI into its product line, the company is establishing capabilities that will allow it to maintain its leadership in biosimulation use cases in drug research and development. Established in 2017, Vyasa software offers businesses a revolutionary artificial intelligence-powered platform that allows them to integrate and analyze material across their company data landscape. LAYAR is a flexible, modular data fabric that can be used to analyze numbers, words, and pictures. It is Vyasa's most important product. It uses artificial intelligence to help people make better decisions during all stages of drug development. About Certara Certara, a pharmaceutical manufacturing firm with headquarters in Princeton, is focused on accelerating the creation of medications by transforming the traditional drug discovery and development process utilizing its biosimulation software, technology, and services. There are around 2,000 biopharmaceutical businesses, academic institutions, and regulatory bodies from 62 countries among its clientele.

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