Boehringer Ingelheim has announced its acquisition of Nerio Therapeutics for up to $1.3bn, marking a significant boost to the German drugmaker’s immuno-oncology pipeline.

The deal gives Boehringer access to the US-based drug discovery and development company’s small molecules designed to inhibit the protein tyrosine phosphatases N1 and N2 (PTPN1 and PTPN2).

PTPN1 and PTPN2 act as immune checkpoints, and inhibiting them can activate the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells.

Boehringer said it hopes to develop the preclinical programme as a potential “key centrepiece component” of its immuno-oncology portfolio, with the company adding that the inhibitors could be used as both single agents and in combination with its own cancer therapies.

Paola Casarosa, member of the board of managing directors at Boehringer, said that gaining the rights to Nerio’s inhibitors “creates a broad panel of exciting new cancer treatment combination opportunities”.

The acquisition came just over a week after Boehringer and artificial intelligence specialist Brainomix entered into a partnership aimed at improving the care of patients with fibrosing lung disease in the US.

Eli Lilly has announced that it will be acquiring Morphic Therapeutics for approximately $3.2bn, marking a notable boost to the company’s chronic disease pipeline.

The deal gives Lilly access to Morphic’s lead programme, MORF-057, a selective oral small molecule inhibitor of α4β7 integrin for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

The candidate, which Lilly said “has the potential to improve outcomes and expand treatment options for patients”, is currently in mid-stage clinical development to treat ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.

An estimated 3.1 million adults in the US are affected by IBD, a term for conditions characterised by chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

The exact cause of IBD is unknown, and symptoms include persistent diarrhoea, abdominal pain, rectal bleeding/bloody stools, weight loss and fatigue.

The acquisition also includes Morphic’s preclinical pipeline of other molecules for autoimmune diseases, pulmonary hypertensive diseases, fibrotic diseases and cancer.

Under the terms of the agreement, Lilly will commence a tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares of Morphic for a purchase price of $57 per share in cash.

Roche’s subcutaneous (SC) formulation of Ocrevus (ocrelizumab) has been approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Agency (MHRA) to treat adults with relapsing and primary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS).

The ten-minute injection maintains the same twice-yearly schedule as the previously approved intravenous (IV) infusion, providing an additional treatment option for patients and enabling them to spend less time in hospital.

Affecting more than 150,000 people in the UK, MS is a neurological disease that causes symptoms such as blurred vision, unsteadiness, memory problems and fatigue.

Roche’s Ocrevus is a disease-modifying therapy designed to target a type of immune cell thought to be a key contributor to myelin and axonal damage, which can lead to disability in people with MS.

The MHRA’s latest decision was supported by clinical trial results showing that the SC formulation is just as effective as the IV treatment, with 97% of patients experiencing no relapses in their condition and no development of brain lesions over 48 weeks.

Alongside reducing treatment time, it is hoped that Ocrevus SC will save time for clinicians and help free up capacity in hospitals.

Merck & Co – known as MSD outside the US and Canada – has received a recommendation from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for the use of Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in a subset of advanced gastric cancer patients.

The anti-PD-1 therapy has been recommended for use alongside platinum- and fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy to treat untreated locally advanced unresectable or metastatic human epidermal growth factor 2-negative gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction adenocarcinoma in adults whose tumours express PD-L1 with a combined positive score (CPS) of one or more.

More than 6,500 new diagnoses of gastric cancer are made in the UK every year and adenocarcinomas, which develop from cells in the innermost lining of the stomach, account for the majority of cases.

The agency’s decision, which provides the first immunotherapy-chemotherapy combination treatment option for patients whose tumours express PD-L1 with a CPS of one to four, was supported by positive results from the late-stage KEYNOTE-859 trial.

Results showed that the Keytruda/chemotherapy combination led to statistically significant improvements in overall survival, progression-free survival and objective response rate compared to placebo plus chemotherapy.