{"id":39421,"date":"2026-06-22T17:11:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T17:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/39421\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T17:11:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T17:11:17","slug":"sanofi-swaps-r-mercks-prometheus-deal-pays-dividends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/39421\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanofi swaps R&D leaders; Merck\u2019s Prometheus deal pays dividends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive<\/a>. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily BioPharma Dive newsletter<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Today, a brief rundown of news involving Sanofi and Merck & Co., as well as updates from Definium Therapeutics, Eli Lilly and Nura Bio that you may have missed.<\/p>\n

Sanofi has announced a new head of research and development. Houman Ashrafian, a former venture investor who\u2019s led global R&D at the French pharmaceutical giant since 2023<\/a>, is leaving to \u201cpursue an opportunity outside the company,\u201d Sanofi said Monday. Effective Sept. 1, he\u2019ll be replaced by Paulo Fontoura, a longtime Roche executive and most recently the Chief Medical Officer of AI drug discovery startup Xaira Therapeutics. Fontoura will report directly to new CEO Bel\u00e9n Garijo<\/a> and attempt to end an ongoing slide for Sanofi, which has recently reported several pipeline setbacks<\/a>. \u2014 Ben Fidler<\/p>\n

An experimental drug at the center of Merck & Co.\u2019s 2023 buyout of Prometheus Biosciences<\/a> has succeeded in a late stage trial<\/a>. Merck didn\u2019t provide specifics, but said Monday that the drug, tulisokibart, met its primary goal in a Phase 3 study in people with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. A second late-stage study is ongoing, but in the meantime Merck will share the results with regulatory authorities and present them at an upcoming scientific meeting. Tulisokibart is part of a new class of inflammatory disease medicines aimed at a protein called TL1A. It\u2019s one of many drugs Merck is counting<\/a> on to boost revenue<\/a> when<\/a> the cancer immunotherapy Keytruda loses patent protection. \u2014 Delilah Alvarado<\/p>\n

Shares of Definium Therapeutics were up roughly 50% late Monday morning, after the psychedlics specialist reported positive results from a Phase 3 trial. The experiment pitted a single dose of Definium\u2019s \u201cDT120\u201d \u2014 a formulation of LSD \u2014 against a placebo in adults with major depressive disorder, and found that, after six weeks, patients in the drug arm experienced significantly greater reductions<\/a> on a widely used scale that measures depression symptoms. Definium said DT120 also worked quickly and was generally well-tolerated, with nearly all treatment-emergent adverse events being transient and mild to moderate in severity. Marc Goodman, an analyst at Leerink Partners, wrote in a note that the data were \u201cabout as good as we could have hoped for\u201d and increased his peak sales for the drug in major depression to a range of $1.5 billion to $2 billion. \u2014 Jacob Bell<\/p>\n

Eli Lilly will work with Sweden-based biotechnology company BioArctic to develop a new drug candidate for neurodegenerative diseases. Through a collaboration announced Monday,<\/a> the companies will pair a proprietary Lilly molecule with a transporter technology BioArctic uses to get medicines into the brain. BioArctic will receive $30 million up front and could get up to $770 million in future milestone payments, as well as sales royalties, should the resulting drug reach market. Lilly will lead global development and commercialization. \u2014 Delilah Alvarado<\/p>\n

Nura Bio, a small, San Francisco-area drugmaker, has completed a nearly $74 million Series B round<\/a> led by The Column Group. Nura said Monday it plans to use the money to further develop its experimental medicines, which are designed to inhibit a protein, \u201cSARM1,\u201d that destroys the electrical signaling \u201caxon\u201d portion of nerve cells. The company\u2019s most advanced medicine is in a Phase 1b\/2a study focused on ALS. Euclidean Capital, Samsara BioCapital and Sanofi Ventures also particiated in the round. \u2014 Jacob Bell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12983],"tags":[20489,27211,27092,27090,27209,27212,27208,3272,13012,27210],"class_list":["post-39421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sanofi","tag-chief-medical-officer","tag-experimental-drug","tag-fontoura","tag-houman-ashrafian","tag-merck","tag-monday-morning","tag-prometheus-biosciences","tag-research-and-development","tag-sanofi","tag-venture-investor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}