Sorrento Therapeutics acquires Acea Therapeutics and with it abivertinib

Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. announced the signing of a merger agreement pursuant to which Sorrento will acquire ACEA Therapeutics, Inc. . The acquisition will include late clinical stage drug Abivertinib, clinical stage candidate AC 0058, preclinical stage candidate AC0 939, and ACEA’s extensive proprietary library of small molecules (over 1,000,000 compounds), which potentially have applications for numerous human disease indications, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), B cell lymphomas, systemic lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and viral infections. These compounds are being actively studied in clinical trials and/or preclinical models to advance the most promising candidates rapidly to clinical stage development. Abivertinib, a novel small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) that selectively targets both a mutant form of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK), was originally identified from ACEA’s compound library. Abivertinib has the potential to improve outcomes in resistant prostate cancer, systemic lupus erythematosus, and various B cell lymphomas in addition to NSCLC, an indication for which a registrational/Phase III trial has been completed. It is currently being studied as a Phase II treatment for COVID-19-induced respiratory compromise in the US and Brazil. A second clinical candidate, AC 0058, is a next generation BTK inhibitor, currently in a Phase 1b trial for Lupus patients in the US, which can potentially be expanded to other autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis.