(AOF) – Ose Immunotherapeutics reduced its losses in the first half of 2022. The net loss amounted to 1.979 million euros against a loss of 11.488 million in the first half of 2021. The operating loss amounted to 3.425 million against a loss of 11 .58 million a year earlier. Turnover jumped 78% to 16 million, supported by milestone payments from its partners.
The biotech has received a €10 million milestone payment under the licensing and collaboration agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim on BI 765063, a SIRPα inhibitor on the SIRPα/CD47 myeloid axis.
It also received a €5 million milestone payment under the licensing agreement with Veloxis Pharmaceuticals Inc. for FR104, an anti-CD28, in transplantation.
As of June 30, 2022, available cash amounted to €31 million, ensuring financial visibility until the third quarter of 2023.
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An inevitable race for new blockbusters
The patent for Merck’s star product, the cancer drug Keytruda, which accounts for more than 35% of its sales, expires in 2028. Despite the loss, since 2019, of the patents for its three star products (Avastin, Herceptine, Rituxan) Roche was able to renew its portfolio by bringing new molecules to market. However, the discovery and launch of new drugs are increasingly expensive. AstraZeneca spends about $6 billion a year on R&D in a pharmaceutical industry where the life of a patent only lasts ten to fifteen years. This leads laboratories to withdraw from certain activities. Thus J&J, Pfizer, GSK and, no doubt, Novartis soon prefer to refocus on specialty drugs and abandon any ancillary activity.