The volatile gene therapy space is getting a boost with Eli Lilly and Co.’s acquisition of Akouos Inc., which only a month before had received the first IND from the U.S. FDA for an adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based hearing loss treatment. Lilly plans to pay about $610 million for the company to get at AK-OTOF, Akouos’ lead candidate for treating hearing loss due to mutations in the otoferlin gene.

Eye diseases specialist Oculis SA is set to add $200 million to its balance sheet by merging with the European Biotech Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) formed to invest in the European life sciences industry.

It’s been a rough year at Macrogenics Inc., but times may be changing. Having terminated a phase II study due to fatalities, dropped 15% of its workforce and closed research and manufacturing sites in the past year, the company has taken the helping hand of Gilead Sciences Inc. The pair have agreed to develop the bispecific MGD-024, which has a CD3 component for minimizing cytokine release syndrome, as an oncology candidate along with two additional bispecific research programs, a potential treatment for certain blood cancers, including acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes.

Synaptive Medical Inc. and Panaxium SAS have inked a deal to bring high-resolution, real-time, artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted cortical mapping to neurosurgeons. Under the collaboration, Synaptive’s Modus V robotic exoscope technology will be integrated with Panaxium’s ultra-flexible iontronic electrocorticography (ECoG) platform.

While biopharma grants and company deals with nonprofits and government entities have dropped below each of the last two years, the volume of activity for non-pandemic-related efforts has remained steady. A total of 837 biopharma-nonprofit deals and grants combined so far this year are worth $10.8 billion, which is down by 21.6% over last year’s $13.7 billion and by 15.6% over 2021’s 992 volume. Also down are the deals and grants focused on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biopharma deals lost speed in the third quarter and are now falling behind each of the last two years, while merger and acquisition values doubled the amount from the first half of 2022. The industry completed a total of 283 deals, including licensings, collaborations and joint ventures, in Q3. They were worth a combined value of $40.98 billion, a rise of 8.3% over the second quarter but down by 28.7% from the first quarter.

In an expansion that will surely have other companies wondering why they didn’t move on the opportunity first, Icad Inc. partnered with Solis Mammography to identify cardiovascular risk based on incidental information commonly found in mammograms—and generally ignored.