March 17 brought neither good luck nor good news to Pear Therapeutics Inc. Just prior to the opening bell, the prescription digital therapeutics company reported that it had engaged MTSA Health Partners LP to explore strategic alternatives for the company. In addition, Pear filed an 8-K with the SEC withdrawing its revenue and operating guidance for fiscal 2022 and 2023 and indicating that it does not plan to hold a fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings conference call and webcast.

Looking ahead to potential commercialization of its late-stage tau PET imaging agent, Aprinoia Therapeutics Inc. has chosen to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Ross Acquisition Corp. II in a deal that has an equity value of $280 million. The funding is aimed at getting candidate 18F-APN-1607 to the market in China.

After a flood of deals with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) that took dozens of med-tech and biotech companies public in 2021, deal flow slowed to a trickle in 2022. Market conditions factored into the collapse of interest, but regulatory changes also played a significant role. Still, several notable companies made their market debuts via SPACs in 2022 – and one changed its mind mid-stream.

In an interview with BioWorld, Ceros Financial Services CEO Mark Goldwasser predicted significant changes in the financing market for med-tech companies in the coming year. While special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deals are not anticipated to return to 2022 levels, Goldwasser expects “we’re going to see a lot of transactions out of big strategics” and a rally in the equity market in the first half of 2023.

As IPOs have slowed significantly in 2022, so have the debuts of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) targeting the life sciences industry, primarily due to two looming threats. This time a year ago, BioWorld had tracked 60 IPOs of SPACs searching for biopharma or med-tech targets and nearly 30 SPACs that had secured acquisitions. For 2022, there are 21 SPACs currently searching, and only two of those went public this year. As for completed M&As involving SPACs, there have been 17 this year and another nine that are pending.

Trisalus Life Sciences Inc. agreed to merge with Medtech Acquisition Corp. (MTAC) in a deal that allows the drug/device company’s management to meet three out of three goals: quick cash, retained control and faster completion of key clinical trials.

Eurekare SA, a technology commercialization and investment firm, has opened the doors to the first of a number of biotech “studios” it is setting up to hothouse synthetic biology and microbiome companies formed around intellectual property sourced from universities across Europe. It’s the most recent step forward in Eurekare’s ambition of creating a pan-European network for identifying, selecting and nurturing high quality European science in these two fields, which in the opinion of the firm’s founders, is at the same time of very high quality and seriously under-exploited.

Barely a month after signing a €1 billion-plus deal with Menarini Group for cholesterol-lowering drug obicetrapib, Newamsterdam Pharma BV has struck a $235 million SPAC merger deal that will see the biotech list on Nasdaq in late 2022. The deal will finance phase III development and potential regulatory filings of the drug once dropped by Amgen Inc. as big pharma turned away from the cholesteryl ester transfer protein inhibitor drug class around five years ago.