Roivant Sciences

Roivant Sciences
Private
Industry Pharmaceuticals
Founded 2014 (2014)
Founder Vivek Ramaswamy
Website www.roivant.com

Roivant Sciences Ltd. is a company that in-licenses late-stage drug candidates and develops them through subsidiaries.[1][2] Roivant has operations in the U.S. (Durham, N.C., and New York City), Switzerland, and Bermuda.[2]

The company was founded in May 2014 by Vivek Ramaswamy.[2] The company's leadership includes Dr. Lawrence Friedhoff, who led the development of Aricept (donepezil) and Aciphex (rabeprazole), William Symonds, who led the development of Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), Dr. Mayukh Sukhatme, Matthew Gline, Marianne Romeo and Alan Roemer.[1]

On 11th August the company announced that they had raised $1.1 billion equity investment led by the SoftBank Vision Fund.[3]

In June 2018, Roivant laid off 67 employees and reassigned 130 to subsidiaries.[4]

The company's subsidiaries include:

  • Axovant Sciences was founded in 2014, and as of 2016 was developing intepirdine as an add-on treatment for Alzheimers disease and nelotanserin for Lewy body dementia.[5][6] It held its IPO in 2015 and raised $315 million.[7] Biotech analysts John Carroll of FierceBiotech and Adam Feuerstein of The Street noted that the IPO was overvalued based on the inexperience of the CEO and the low quality of its lead product, describing it as something that "GSK sold for lunch money".[8][9][10] In September 2017 the company announced that its Phase III trial of intepirdine as an adjuvant to donepezil had failed to show any improvement over donepezil alone.[11][12]
  • Enzyvant was founded to develop therapies for rare diseases.[15][16] One of its treatments is a version of ceramidase being developed as treatment for Farber disease.[17] Another was licensed from Duke University in 2017 and is a potential treatment for a kind of DiGeorge syndrome; the treatment is thymus tissue that is harvested, treated, and implanted in a person with the condition.[17]
  • Dermavant was founded to develop drugs for skin diseases.[18][19]
  • Urovant was formed in 2017 to complete development of vibegron, a drug candidate for overactive bladder than Merck had developed it through a Phase III trial before deciding to abandon it; Urovant had licensed from Merck.[20]

References

  1. 1 2 Vardi, Nathan (13 July 2016). "Billionaire Andreas Halvorsen's Hedge Fund Backs Private Biotech Roivant Sciences". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-10-07.
  2. 1 2 3 Vardi, Nathan (9 September 2015). "The 30-Year-Old CEO Conjuring Drug Companies From Thin Air". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-10-07.
  3. ↑ "Roivant Raises $1.1 Billion Funding from SoftBank - TechStory". TechStory. 2017-08-11. Retrieved 2017-08-11.
  4. ↑ Taylor, Nick Paul. "Roivant cuts staff, reassigns others in major reshuffle, as insider decries 'bloodbath'".
  5. ↑ "10-K For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016". Axovant via SEC Edgar. June 6, 2016.
  6. ↑ Grover, Natalie (28 Apr 2016). "Acadia drug approval could clear way for Axovant dementia therapy". Reuters.
  7. ↑ Staff (12 Jun 2015). "Axovant doubles in value after $315M IPO". Pharmaceutical Processing. Associated Press.
  8. ↑ Carroll, John (June 11, 2015). "Why Axovant's $315M IPO bonanza should scare the hell out of you". FierceBiotech.
  9. ↑ Feuerstein, Adam (8 June 2015). "Inside the Hedge Fund Club Pitching a New Alzheimer's Drug IPO". TheStreet.
  10. ↑ Pollack, Andy (11 June 2015). "Shares of Axovant, Alzheimer's Drug Developer, Surge on Trading Debut". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  11. ↑ Garde, Damian (26 September 2017). "Another Alzheimer's failure: Axovant's drug flops in late-stage trial". STAT News.
  12. ↑ Herper, Matthew (September 26, 2017). "Axovant Alzheimer's Drug Fails To Help Patients". Forbes.
  13. ↑ Taylor, Nick Paul (7 June 2016). "Axovant founder, Takeda install ex-Medivation CMO at helm of PhIII-ready startup". Fierce Biotech. Retrieved 2016-10-07.
  14. ↑ Leuty, Ron (27 October 2016). "Biggest biotech IPO this year is a small Peninsula company". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  15. ↑ White, Victoria. "New company Enzyvant takes aim at Farber disease". Drug Target Review. Retrieved 2016-10-07.
  16. ↑ Adams, Ben. "Roivant and Plexcera launch rare disease focused spinout". Fierce Biotech. Retrieved 2016-10-07.
  17. 1 2 Preston, Juliet (April 17, 2017). "Enzyvant secures new Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation - MedCity News". medcitynews.com.
  18. ↑ Loizos, Connie (6 January 2017). "The billion-dollar pharma startup that Silicon Valley has totally missed | Startup World". Startup World.
  19. ↑ Carroll, John (December 21, 2016). "Is biopharma's Midas man Vivek Ramaswamy building a new IPO vehicle with Dermavant deal?". Endpoints.
  20. ↑ Adams, Ben (June 7, 2017). "Roivant launches Urovant with phase 3 Merck med". FierceBiotech.
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