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Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca will acquire biotechnology company Neogene Therapeutics for up to $320 million, the London-listed drugmaker said on Tuesday (November 29) as it seeks to build its pipeline of cell-based cancer treatments. Though AstraZeneca's oncology portfolio accounted for more than a third of the company's revenue last year, it does not have an approved cell-based cancer therapy and is behind rivals such as Novartis and Gilead. "Neogene's leading (T-cell receptor) discovery capabilities and extensive manufacturing experience complement the cell therapy capability we have built over the last three years," said Susan Galbraith, AstraZeneca's executive vice president of oncology research. Cell-based treatments are a relatively new approach to treating cancer, most of which involve drawing the body's own immune cells and processing them in the lab to target and kill cancer cells. Neogene's approach goes one step further in that its experimental T-cell receptor therapies seek to target DNA mutations specific to tumours, not only certain proteins on the surface of cancer cells.

AstraZeneca said on Monday (June 27) two of its existing therapies were recommended for treating patients with some forms of high-risk breast cancers in the European Union, in a boost to the company's oncology portfolio. Lynparza, a cancer drug developed jointly with U.S.-based Merck, was backed for standalone use or in combination with endocrine therapy in adults with a form of genetically mutated early-stage breast cancer. The drug, which has received a similar recommendation in the United States in March, is a key asset for AstraZeneca. It was recommended in patients with low-to-normal levels of a protein known as HER2 that is the target of several new therapies. Enhertu - developed jointly with Japan's Daiichi Sankyo (4568.T) - was the other drug that was endorsed by the European Medicines Agency for treating an aggressive form of breast cancer characterised by a high rate of HER2.

The drug, alpelisib, which is the 100th cancer drug that has being fast-tracked to patients under the NHS Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) will be used in combination with the hormone therapy, fulvestrant, to target the gene that causes fast-growing tumours. Up to 3,000 people a year with a certain type of secondary breast cancer will benefit from the treatment. The approach has contributed to people in England having access to nearly one third more cancer drugs compared to the European average. The drug which is manufactured by pharmaceutical company Novartis, is part of a growing number of precision treatments that target a tumour based on mutations in its DNA and that the NHS is rolling out. John Stewart, NHS National Director for Specialised Commissioning said, "In just over five years, more than 80,000 people have benefitted from earlier access to a range of cancer drugs, with people in England having access to nearly one third more cancer drugs compared to the European average, and this latest innovative new treatment will help up to 3,000 more to live a better quality of life.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended abemaciclib also called Verzenios, made by Eli Lilly, for people with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, node-positive early breast cancer at high risk of recurrence who have had surgery to remove their tumour. The clinical trial result showed that people having abemaciclib with hormone therapy had a more than 30 per cent better chance of their cancer not coming back following surgery compared with people having hormone therapy alone. Helen Knight, interim director of medicines evaluation at NICE, said: "Today's positive draft recommendation, which comes less than a month after abemaciclib received its licence, is fantastic news. The fact that we have been able to produce draft recommendations so quickly is testament to the success of our ambition to support patient access to clinically and cost effective treatments as early as possible. "Until now there have been no targeted treatments for people with this type of breast cancer. Abemaciclib with hormone therapy represents a significant improvement in how it is treated because being able to have a targeted treatment earlier after surgery will increase the chance of curing the disease and reduce the likelihood of developing incurable advanced disease."

German biotechnology company BioNTech has signed a deal with the Department of Health and Social Care to enrol up to 10,000 patients in clinical trials by the end of 2030 for personalised cancer therapies, the German drug maker said. The multi-year collaboration is focused on cancer immunotherapies based on mRNA or other drug classes, infectious disease vaccines, and investments into expanding the company's footprint in the UK, BioNTech said in a statement on Thursday (January 5). Under the agreement, the parties plan to utilise UK's clinical trial network, genomics and health data assets, aiming to enrol the first cancer patient in the second half of 2023, the company said.

A new study by The Institute of Cancer Research, London (ICR) has shown that a genetic test for faults in DNA repair could enable targeted nuclear treatments for patients with prostate cancer.