Following today’s announcement of the acquisition of emapalumab and related assets, Sobi™ intends to carry out a reorganisation to increase the focus of research & development resources to support its two core therapeutic areas: Haematology and Immunology.
Sobi’s focus for the future is on building its pipeline through the continued development of core assets in late stage and the acquisition of promising late-stage candidates. To this end, Sobi intends to establish two centres of excellence, for Haematology in Sweden and for Immunology in Switzerland.
Guido Oelkers, Sobi President and CEO, says: “This planned structural alignment will sharpen the focus of the company on our two main areas: Haematology and Immunology. The integration of the emapalumab organisation
makes this alignment possible.
“We will continue to increase our R&D spend in late-stage development, demonstrating our commitment to making a significant difference for people with rare diseases by providing access to innovative treatments within the rare disease space.”
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
Sobi also intends to discontinue discovery/early research and partner R&D programmes outside its core focus areas. This includes the intention to divest the SOBI006 project and the SOBI003 project.
The new focus of the R&D organisation is expected to lead to annual savings of SEK 200–300 M on a full-year basis in 2020, which will increase the company’s financial flexibility to reallocate future investments into late-stage
development projects. In 2019 restructuring costs of around SEK 100–200 M relating to the reorganisation and redundancies corresponding to approximately 90 positions will be charged. Guidance for the full year 2019, excluding restructuring costs, remains unchanged.
Date: June 17, 2019
Source: Bloomberg
