BEIJING – Legend Biotech Corp., headquartered in Somerset, N.J., filed with the U.S. SEC last week plans to raise up to $100 million to advance its BCMA-targeting CAR T candidate, LCAR-B38M, by listing on Nasdaq. Legend confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the regulators in March.

Shanghai-based I-Mab Biopharma Co. Ltd. became the first IPO out of the gate this year, pricing its IPO of about 7.4 million American depositary shares (ADSs) – each 10 representing 23 ordinary shares of the company, par value $0.0001 per share – at $14 each, within the planned range of $12 at the low end and $15 at the high. But the stock’s performance might not have been all investors hoped, as shares (NASDAQ:IMAB) closed at $12.50 Jan. 17.

DUBLIN – Last year was yet another banner year for European biotechnology firms engaged in drug development. The sector took in $7.739 billion in equity funding in 2019, just edging past the previous high of $7.715 billion it reached in 2018. The second half of the year was a marked improvement on the first half, but that was linked to the timing of a couple of large-scale transactions.

Throughout the year we have published the views of company executives, government regulators, industry analysts and scientists on a variety of topics and, in our popular annual feature, we include a selection of these that paints a picture of the significant events that shaped 2019. The major talking point was on the capital markets front where investors turned their backs on the biopharmaceutical sector for most of the year returned big time in the final quarter.