Industry Watch [to 21 February 2015]
:: Sanofi Appoints Olivier Brandicourt as Chief Executive Officer
– Tenure as CEO will commence on April 2, 2015 –
Paris – February 19, 2015 – The Board of Directors unanimously appointed Olivier Brandicourt as Chief Executive Officer of Sanofi.

Olivier Brandicourt has 28 years of global experience in the pharmaceutical industry, most recently as Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer HealthCare AG and member of the Executive Council of Bayer AG. Previously, Brandicourt held numerous positions of increasing responsibility within major global pharmaceutical groups, such as Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert and Pfizer. Notably, Brandicourt served as a member of Pfizer’s global Executive Leadership Team from 2010 – 2013.

A physician by training, Olivier Brandicourt’s career includes several senior positions in Europe, Canada and the United States…

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:: Wellcome Trust-funded vaccines company acquired by GSK
20 February 2015
GlycoVaxyn, a Swiss-based biopharmaceutical company, which has received funding from the Wellcome Trust Innovations division, has been acquired by global pharma firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for $190 million (approximately £124 million).

GlycoVaxyn, a spin off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), has developed an innovative technology that enables the cost-effective manufacture of bioconjugate vaccines.

Bioconjugate vaccines are particularly effective against bacterial infections. They are made by joining sugar molecules called polysaccharides, found in the outer coating of many harmful bacteria, and proteins that together induce a more powerful immune response. GlycoVaxyn’s technology allows these conjugates to be mass-produced in live E. coli cells that have been genetically engineered.

GlycoVaxyn was awarded CHF 5.1 million by the Trust in 2012 to develop such a vaccine against the Shigella bacterium…A phase I study of GlycoVaxyn’s candidate Shigella vaccine, funded by the Wellcome Trust award, is due to start in the first quarter of 2015.

Dr Georgios Trichas, from the Innovations division at the Wellcome Trust, said:
“This is a fantastic outcome for GlycoVaxyn and the Wellcome Trust-funded project. We look forward to working with both companies in future to establish the safety and efficacy of the candidate Shigella vaccine in this area of urgent unmet medical need.”

Prior to the acquisition, GSK was a shareholder in GlycoVaxyn and the two have collaborated since 2012 on research using the latter’s innovative biological conjugation platform technology.

With this transaction, GSK has now purchased all shares in the company, valuing it at US$212 million (approximately £139 million). As well as Wellcome Trust funding, Glycovaxyn was also supported previously by investments from life science venture capital firms including Sofinnova Partners, Index Ventures and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners.

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:: MediVector Completes Patient Enrollment in Two Phase 3 Studies of Favipiravir for Influenza
-More than 2,000 patients enrolled in the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa; Favipiravir has potential to provide broad-spectrum coverage of multiple influenza strains-
BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–MediVector, Inc. today announced it has successfully completed enrollment in two FAVOR favipiravir Phase 3 studies in adults with uncomplicated influenza (often called the “flu”). The two studies enrolled 2,021 patients in participating clinics and practices in the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Favipiravir is an orally administered novel anti-viral compound with a unique mechanism of action that is active

“Completion of enrollment within a year of initiating these clinical trials is a significant accomplishment, and the resulting data from the carefully designed studies will lay the groundwork for filing an application for approval to market favipiravir in the U.S.,” Dr. Carol Epstein, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of MediVector, Inc. said. “Resistance to currently available influenza treatments is a growing problem, and there is an urgent need for a new broad-spectrum therapeutic with a different mechanism of action that is active against multiple strains of influenza viruses.”

The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-centered Phase 3 FAVOR studies are evaluating the time to alleviation of all primary influenza symptoms consistent with uncomplicated influenza, after treatment with favipiravir….