Biohaven stocks up on experimental drugs with new acquisition, licensing deal – BioPharma Dive

Biohaven’s business largely revolves around a drug called rimegepant, which was first approved in 2020 as an acute treatment for migraines and has since been cleared to also prevent the painful headaches.
Sales of rimegepant, which is branded as Nurtec ODT, quickly climbed, due in no small part to a digital-heavy marketing campaign that included NASCAR promotions, Tik Tok advertisements and celebrity endorsements from the likes of Khloe Kardashian and Whoopi Goldberg. This commercialization strategy, according to Biohaven CEO Vlad Coric, has helped Biohaven compete in the migraine treatment market, which has grown more crowded in recent years because of new treatments from AbbVie, Amgen and Eli Lilly.
“We’ve been really efficient with our marketing budget,” Coric told BioPharma Dive last year. “We spend less than AbbVie and we have equal market share, and it’s because of this digital-first approach that’s really become effective for us.”
In its latest earnings report, also issued Friday, Biohaven said more than 1.6 million Nurtec ODT prescriptions have been written to date, and that net revenue from the drug totaled $463 million in 2021. Notably, the company also recently sold rights to Nurtec ODT outside of the U.S. to Pfizer, in a deal worth more than half a billion dollars.
Biohaven is now deploying some of this new cash to grow its pipeline. The purchase of Channel Biosciences, for example, is comprised of a $35 million cash payment and $65 million worth of Biohaven common shares.
The company that owned Channel, Knopp Biosciences, could also receive more than $1 billion in additional payments, provided certain milestones are hit. For instance, if Channel’s lead asset, known as BHV-7000, can progress through clinical testing and get approved in the U.S., Japan and European Union, Biohaven has agreed to pay as much as $325 million.
“This technology platform is poised to deliver new treatment options for patients suffering from epilepsy and, if ultimately approved, will be synergistic with our existing commercial sales force already calling upon neurologists who also may treat patients with seizures,” Coric said in a statement Friday.
As for the Bristol Myers deal, the SMA drug is the third asset Biohaven has licensed from the large pharmaceutical firm. The other two were rimegepant and an experimental medicine called zavegepant, which Biohaven has also been testing in migraine treatment and prevention.
Late last year, Biohaven disclosed results from a large clinical study of zavegepant, showing the medicine did significantly better than placebo at relieving patients’ pain and addressing some of the most bothersome symptoms of their migraines. With those results in hand, Biohaven said it plans to submit zavegepant for approval in the U.S. before the end of March.
The new SMA drug, meanwhile, was previously licensed to Roche, which had sought to develop the drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy but then discontinued research after determining a clinical trial of it was unlikely to succeed. 
While Biohaven leadership may have been excited for Friday’s influx of news, shares in the company dropped by more than 9% in morning trading.
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As record levels of money pour into gene therapy research, biotechs are under increased pressure to address issues related to safety, delivery and overlapping pipelines. 
Through high-stakes litigation, aggressive patenting practices and a bit of luck, Amgen will likely stretch Enbrel's monopoly until 2029, more than 30 years after it was approved.
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