Inflammation continues to be an area of keen interest for...

Inflammation continues to be an area of keen interest for pharma.

Pfizer has agreed to pay US$6.7bn to acquire Arena Pharmaceuticals, an R&D stage company specializing in products for inflammatory conditions. The offer represents a greater than 100% premium on Arena’s closing share price prior to announcement of the deal.

Inflammatory disease is one of Pfizer’s core research areas, and it already has a portfolio of medicines led by the JAK inhibitors Xeljanz and abrocitinib.

Arena’s lead candidate drug, etrasimod, targets sphingosine-1-phosphate or S1P, and is in Phase 3 trials for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease with results expected next year. It is also being tested in Phase 2 for an immune condition that affects the oesophagus.

S1P is also the target of BMS’s Zeposia, which was approved in May to treat ulcerative colitis.


Noxopharm’s wholly owned subsidiary, Pharmorage, is focused on developing a new generation of drugs against inflammatory disorders, autoimmune diseases, and septic shock, based on two separate platforms.

The first platform uses small molecule inhibitors of TBK1, based on novel flavonoid compounds, to target signalling pathways that converge to amplify inflammation. Focus for this platform will be on generating treatments for conditions such as motor neurone disease, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes mellitus and psoriasis.

The second Pharmorage platform is a synthetic RNA technology which has been recently licensed from Hudson Institute of Medical Research. This will be used to investigate the use of TLR7-suppressive oligonucleotides and cGAS-inhibiting oligonucleotides for the improvement of mRNA vaccines, and in the treatment of inflammation for a range of chronic diseases.

https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/pfizer-acquires-arena-pharmaceuticals-inflammation-drugs/611383/

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/13/pfi...pharmaceuticals-in-6point7-billion-deal-.html

https://www.pharmorage.com/site/content/