On January 23, 2020 Amgen Inc. (Headquarters: Thousand Oaks, California, USA; Chairman and CEO: Robert A. Bradway; "Amgen"), Astellas Pharma Inc. (Headquarters: Tokyo; President and CEO: Kenji Yasukawa, PhD., "Astellas"), and Amgen Astellas BioPharma K.K. (Headquarters: Tokyo; President and Representative Director: Steve Sugino; "Amgen Astellas BioPharma") reported that on April 1, 2020, Amgen will purchase the 49% of shares in Amgen Astellas BioPharma that are held by Astellas, based on the strategic alliance contract signed between Amgen and Astellas in 2013, making the company a wholly owned Amgen affiliate (Press release, Astellas, JAN 23, 2020, View Source [SID1234553437]).

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With this, Amgen Astellas BioPharma will change its name to Amgen K.K., and simultaneously relocate its Headquarters to Tokyo Midtown (9-7-1 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo). Steve Sugino will continue to serve as President and Representative Director of Amgen K.K.

Amgen Astellas BioPharma commenced business in October 2013, bringing together the strengths of Amgen, one of the world’s leading independent biotechnology companies, and Astellas, a company with deep knowledge of the medical needs in Japan and a wealth of experience in the development and marketing of pharmaceutical products, as well as a strong business foundation, to contribute to healthcare in Japan through the provision of innovative medicines created by Amgen.

Since then, Amgen Astellas BioPharma and Astellas have worked together to serve patients in Japan with cardiovascular disease, cancer, and bone disease, which are three areas of significant unmet medical needs, launching Repatha for familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) or hypercholesterolemia for patients who have high cardiovascular event risk and do not adequately respond to HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, BLINCYTO for patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and EVENITY for osteoporosis patients at high risk of fracture. Amgen K.K. and Astellas will continue to co-promote these three products and Astellas will remain responsible for distribution and sales of the products beyond 2020.

Amgen K.K. will carry forward Amgen’s global mission to serve patients by delivering breakthrough-science-based medicines, while also striving to bring Amgen’s full global pipeline of innovative medicines to patients in Japan who face unmet medical needs.

On January 23, 2020 AskAt reported that it received a Notice of Allowance dated January 14, 2020 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in connection with Application No. 16/417,870, a use patent for AskAt’s EP4 receptor antagonists in the treatment of NASH-associated liver cancer AskAt received a Notice of Allowance dated January 14, 2020 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in connection with Application No. 16/417,870, a use patent for AskAt’s EP4 receptor antagonists in the treatment of NASH-associated liver cancer.

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On January 23, 2020 Evotec SE (Frankfurt Stock Exchange: EVT, MDAX/TecDAX, ISIN: DE0005664809) and Indivumed GmbH ("Indivumed") reported that the companies have entered into a new research collaboration to discover and develop first-in-class therapeutics for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer ("NSCLC") (Press release, Evotec, JAN 23, 2020, View Source;announcements/press-releases/p/evotec-and-indivumed-announce-second-joint-drug-discovery-programme-5903 [SID1234553435]). The final goal of this precision medicine collaboration is to deliver highly effective treatments for NSCLC patients.

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The collaboration will combine Evotec’s proprietary bioinformatics analysis platform "PanHunter," as well as its small molecule and antibody discovery platforms, with the NSCLC cohort of Indivumed’s true multi-omics cancer database "IndivuType," and its advanced analytics and AI capabilities.

This agreement follows the successful progress of the companies’ previous joint drug discovery programme in the field of colorectal cancer, which was first announced in April 2019 and identified several novel drug targets by September 2019 that will be used in the development of new treatments for the disease. Working together, both parties will jointly invest in data analysis, target identification, validation and subsequent drug discovery. Evotec will be responsible for subsequent partnering of the programmes and the platform.

Dr Cord Dohrmann, Chief Scientific Officer of Evotec, commented: "We are excited to add this new discovery programme to our successful precision medicine collaboration with Indivumed. We are confident that combining the highly complementary strengths of our companies will generate innovative drug candidates for clearly defined patient populations within non-small cell lung cancer who urgently need effective treatments."

"We are delighted by this new collaboration with Evotec," said Prof. Dr Hartmut Juhl, CEO of Indivumed. "The fast and successful development of our previous joint colorectal cancer programme has led to this new agreement, less than twelve months after the first one. Together we will discover and develop novel drugs for the treatment of NSCLC, using as a starting point our IndivuType multi-omics platform."

Indivumed’s focus on generating comprehensive high-quality oncology patient data is complementary to Evotec’s capabilities in multi-omics data analysis and novel platforms for the generation of first-in-class and clearly differentiated small molecule and antibody therapies. No financial details of the agreement were disclosed.

On January 22, 2020 Neurotrope, Inc. (the "Company") (NASDAQ:NTRP) reported that it has received commitments from institutional investors and pre-existing high net worth individuals to purchase an aggregate of $18 million of the Company’s securities in a registered direct offering (Press release, Neurotrope, JAN 22, 2020, View Source [SID1234553906]).

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The Company entered into definitive purchase agreements with these investors pursuant to which the Company agreed to sell an aggregate of 18,000 shares of its Series D Convertible Preferred Stock (which are convertible into a total of approximately 10,909,091 shares of common stock) and warrants potentially exercisable for up to approximately 10,909,091 additional shares of its common stock. Subject to certain ownership limitations, the preferred stock is convertible at any time at the option of the holder into shares of common stock at a conversion price of $1.65 (which represents $0.20 above $1.45, the closing price of the common stock on the previous trading day). The warrants will be exercisable at a price of $1.65 per share and will expire five years from the issuance date. The closing of the offering is expected to take place on or about January 23, 2020, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

The estimated net proceeds to the Company from the offering are expected to be approximately $16.4 million. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes.

Katalyst Securities LLC acted as our Financial Advisor on this transaction.

A shelf registration statement (File No. 333-217089) relating to the shares of preferred stock and warrants issued in the offering (and the shares of common stock issuable upon conversion of the preferred stock exercise of the warrants) has been filed with and declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). A prospectus supplement relating to the offering will be filed by the Company with the SEC. Copies of the prospectus supplement, together with the accompanying prospectus, can be obtained at the SEC’s website at View Source, from Katalyst Securities LLC by e-mailing [email protected], or from Neurotrope, Inc., 1185 Avenue of the Americas, 3rd Floor, New York, New York 10036, Attention: Investor Relations.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities of the Company in this offering. There shall not be any offer, solicitation of an offer to buy, or sale of securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offering, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. Any offering will be made only by means of a prospectus, including a prospectus supplement, forming a part of the effective registration statement.

On January 22, 2020 Zai Lab Limited ("Zai Lab" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: ZLAB), a China and U.S.-based innovative commercial stage biopharmaceutical company, reported the pricing of its underwritten public offering of 5,500,000 American depositary shares ("ADSs"), each representing one ordinary share of the Company (the "Primary ADS Offering"), at a price of US$47.50 per ADS (Press release, Zai Laboratory, JAN 22, 2020, View Source [SID1234553526]). In addition, QM11 Limited, a shareholder of the Company, is offering 500,000 ADSs of the Company (the "Secondary ADS Offering" and together with the Primary ADS Offering, the "Offering") at the same price. The Offering is expected to close on January 27, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions.

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The gross proceeds to Zai Lab from the Primary ADS Offering, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses, are expected to be approximately US$261.3 million. Zai Lab will not receive any proceeds from the sale of ADSs by QM11 Limited.

In addition, Zai Lab and QM11 Limited have granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 800,000 and 100,000 ADSs, respectively at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions. Assuming the over-allotment option is not exercised, QM11 Limited will own approximately 13.53% of the Company’s share capital immediately following the Offering. Assuming full exercise of the over- allotment option, QM11 Limited will own approximately 12.15% of the Company’s share capital immediately following the Offering.

J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and SVB Leerink are acting as joint book-running managers and Guggenheim Securities is acting as lead manager for the Offering.

The ADSs are offered pursuant to a shelf registration statement on Form F-3ASR, which became automatically effective upon filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on March 29, 2019 and was subsequently amended and became automatically effective upon filing with the SEC on January 21, 2020.

The Offering is being made only by means of a prospectus supplement and an accompanying prospectus included in Form-3ASR. The registration statement on Form F-3ASR and the prospectus supplement are available at the SEC’s website at: View Source Copies of the prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus may be obtained from: (i) J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Attention: Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, by telephone at 1-866-803-9204 or by email at [email protected], (ii) Citigroup Global Markets Inc., c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717 or by telephone at 1-800-831-9146, (iii) Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, by telephone at 1-866-471-2526, by facsimile at (212) 902-9316 or by email at [email protected] or (iv) SVB Leerink LLC, Attention: Syndicate Department, One Federal Street, 37th Floor, Boston, MA 02110, by telephone at 1-800-808-7525 ex. 6132 or by email at [email protected].

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy ADSs or any other securities, nor shall there be any sale of ADSs in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.