While Defitelio is not authorized in the EU for the prevention of veno-occlusive disease (VOD), the European Medicines Agency wants health professionals to be informed about the results of a recent study in which the drug showed no benefit in this indication.

AbbVie pays $130m up front with up to $870m in earnout potential for UCB spinout focused on SV2A modulators. BioNTech gets rights to preclinical TCR candidates for solid tumors from Medigene.

The big pharma has a gene therapy R&D site in New York from its Prevail Therapeutics buy; the RNA-focused Boston site also will conduct drug delivery research benefitting programs at both locations.

Heading into the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference, pharmas have been focusing on discovery alliances. J&J’s deals look into novel tissue-targeted drugs, ionic liquid delivery technology and cancer vaccine R&D. Lilly teams with Entos on novel methods for delivering neurology drugs.