1. PhRMA moved forward with plans to admit several new members: Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. Other members of the lobbying group had previously raised questions about granting membership to Teva, which mainly markets generic drugs.
2. Amgen signed an agreement with Daiichi Sankyo to commercialize nine biosimilars in Japan, including biosimilars of AbbVie’s Humira and Roche’s Avastin and Herceptin. (ThePharmaLetter)
3. Thomson Reuters said it will sell its intellectual property and science arm to Onex Corp. and Baring Private Equity. (Stat)
4. A British nonprofit received $150 million for selling part of its royalties in Merck’s Keytruda. A private equity firm owned by DRI Capital acquired the royalty entitlement. (Reuters)
5. ICYMI: In other Keytruda news, researchers are trying to better understand why some patients with advanced cancers, like melanoma and lung cancer, report a delayed resistance in treatment after initially responding to the treatment. (WaPo)
