PERTH, Australia – Melbourne-based Prescient Therapeutics Pty Ltd. is poised to develop next-generation CAR T therapies after signing an exclusive global licensing deal with the University of Pennsylvania for a universal immune receptor technology platform.

HONG KONG – New York and San Diego-based Zentalis Pharmaceuticals Inc. has gained $20 million in a series A financing round to support a Chinese joint venture called Zentera Therapeutics.

BEIJING – Androgen receptor (AR)-related disease specialist Kintor Pharmaceutical Ltd., of Suzhou, China, raised $240 million on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) on May 22 by issuing 92.3 million shares at HK$20.15 apiece. The IPO was oversubscribed by 551 times, showing the city’s biotech fever.

Although many companies have experienced struggles during the COVID-19 pandemic, Brisbane, Australia, and Carlsbad, Calif.-based Impedimed Ltd. has seen success with Sozo, the company’s digital health platform. Indeed, the company has as one of its priorities helping patients with lymphedema with the platform, which is a noninvasive bioimpedance spectroscopy device.

Pharma and diagnostics giant Roche Holding AG, of Basel, Switzerland, has acquired Seattle-based Stratos Genomics Inc., an early-stage sequencing technology company, in a move aimed at advancing development of Roche’s nanopore sequencer. Financial terms of the deal, which was first reported on Friday, were not disclosed.

Variants in the APOE gene are the strongest genetic risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Now, researchers at Rockefeller University have demonstrated that APOE variants also affected the risk of progression and metastasis as well as the response to immunotherapy, in melanoma.