Editor’s Take: Major pharma companies pledged billions of dollars on deals, but even beyond acquisitions, big moves abound.

Now on “The Friday Brief” … Billions spent in acquisitions this week, and it starts with GSK saying it will acquire Nuvalent for $10.6 billion. It’s a multi-product oncology deal including assets with validated targets.

Next, Johnson & Johnson is taking on Firefly Bio in a $1 billion deal. Firefly has been advancing its proprietary degrader antibody conjugate platform—bolstering J&J’s oncology pipeline.

Incyte has agreed to acquire Vega Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Star Therapeutics, at a price of $1.25 billion. This adds Vega’s lead candidate, a novel monoclonal antibody, to Incyte’s hematology portfolio. And PharmaEssentia is acquiring Forus Therapeutics, for “only” $36.5 million, growing PharmaEssentia’s commercial footprint in North America.

Not Just Acquisitions

There are more billions being bet on collaborations and licensing deals. Roche struck a $2.3 billion deal with Nurix Therapeutics to co-develop and commercialize an investigational BTK degrader. Orionis Biosciences is getting $40 million up front, and possibly up to $1.4 billion more, from Novartis to discover and design molecular glue drugs. And though exact financial terms were not laid out, AmMax Bio and Lonza have an agreement to license AmMax’s ADC for treating hematological cancers.

In other partnerships, Syntax Bio is engaging with Mayo Clinic on stem cell-derived pancreatic cell therapies for type 1 diabetes. Shilpa Medicare and Gate2Brain are linking up to advance a first-in-class brain cancer therapy. Verge Labs and Tenacia Biotech are moving forward a pipeline of treatments for central nervous system diseases. And Genesis Pharma and Alnylam Pharma are expanding their partnership to bring RNAi therapeutics to Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.

Beyond The Friday Brief

As always, plenty more to dive into at contractpharma.com. And, don’t forget to sign up for our newsletters so you get this news as well as issue alerts and special content previews right in your inbox. We’ll see you next week, on The Friday Brief.