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March 02, 2018

Welcome to FierceLifeSci Weekly Digest, your roundup of the biggest and most popular stories from each of our publications.

Featured Story

Allergan was blasted for its unusual Mohawk patent license, and now it's a total flop

After months of criticism that even spilled into a judge's opinion in a separate case, Allergan's Restasis patent deal with the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe just didn't work. Thanks to a Friday ruling, the blockbuster eye drug has to face the very patent challenge Allergan sought to prevent.

Top Stories Of The Week

Bristol-Myers chops clinical staff as site closure enters endgame

Bristol-Myers Squibb is set to lay off 107 staffers at its Wallingford, Connecticut, site as its planned closure of the facility gathers pace. Having earmarked the site for staff reductions in 2015, Bristol-Myers is now doling out pink slips at an accelerating rate as it gets closer to shuttering by the end of the year.

Teva shutters New York, D.C. offices and dismisses lobbyists as part of U.S. consolidation drive

Teva is working to consolidate seven U.S. offices under one roof, and that means saying bye-bye to its New York and Washington, D.C., locations.

AstraZeneca spinout bags $250M, pipeline headed by late-phase autoimmune drug

AstraZeneca has carved off six inflammation and autoimmune assets to create a new biotech, Viela Bio. The startup put together a $250 million series A round and a management team from its parent company to guide the mix of clinical and preclinical programs forward.

Fresenius' $4.3B buyout of Akorn threatened by data integrity probe

Fresenius’ $4.3 billion deal to buy out U.S. generics maker Akorn is in jeopardy as the two companies investigate allegations that Akorn violated FDA data standards during drug development.

A CRISPR cure for Huntington’s?

Scientists in Poland are fine-tuning a Cas9 “nickase”—an enzyme that can cut one strand of DNA instead of both strands—potentially providing a safe way to edit out the gene that causes Huntington's.

Biogen, Novartis, Sanofi catch a break with holdup to Celgene MS prospect

Companies expecting competition from Celgene multiple sclerosis candidate ozanimod just got a reprieve. The big biotech revealed late Tuesday that the FDA refused to accept its approval application because of “incomplete” pharmacology data. And that means more time for its future rivals to rack up sales unchallenged.

Grail said to be planning IPO in Hong Kong to raise $500M

Grail, which seeks to develop liquid biopsies to catch cancer early, is looking at an initial public offering in Hong Kong, Bloomberg reported.

Bavarian Nordic’s cancer vaccine CV301 paired with Imfinzi, its third PD-1/L1 combo

Following through on its strategy of showing CV301 could work in multiple tumor types, Bavarian Nordic has agreed to test the cancer vaccine in combination with AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi plus chemo in patients with metastatic colorectal or pancreatic cancers.

PPD to run ‘patient concierge’ trial service

As biopharmas continue to struggle to recruit and retain patients in their clinical trials, PPD and Acurian are hoping to make the process easier by running a new “concierge service.”

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