GI Windows Corp. scooped up $16.4 million in a series A-1 financing that included investment from Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC Inc., Sonder Capital, GT Healthcare, JC Investco and an unnamed strategic investor. Also participating in the round were new investors Kennedy Trust and Coleman Trust. The funds are earmarked to advance the development and clinical trials of the company’s incisionless anastomosis technology.

Athira Pharma Inc.’s proposed $100 million IPO, along with a filing by Virios Therapeutics LLC to raise $35 million on Aug. 28, helped propel a supercharged amount of investment in 2020 that shows no sign of slowing. The pace is unusually swift this year despite hindrances from COVID-19. The total value of IPOs so far in 2020 is $12.95 billion, with 54 completed, easily outpacing 2019’s $8.64 billion.

Bright days are ahead for China’s biopharmaceutical sector, which is getting a reset from the efforts to tackle COVID-19 through innovation and advancements. “I'm consciously optimistic about the fact that cross-border deals will continue,” Stella Xu, managing director, Quan Capital, from Shanghai, China said during a panel discussion at the Chinabio Partnering Forum.

DUBLIN – Liquid biopsy developer Freenome Inc. has – literally – capitalized on its recent proof-of-concept AI-Emerge colorectal cancer (CRC) screening study by raising $270 million in a series C round that will enable the South San Francisco firm to complete its ongoing Preempt CRC registration study and to file for pre-market approval from the FDA.

Annexon Biosciences Inc.’s handsome $250 million IPO this summer verified the mounting interest in its two front-running C1q inhibitors: ANX-005, which has turned up promising phase Ib data in Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), with a phase II/III effort planned for next year, and ANX-007, due to enter a phase II experiment in geographic atrophy (GA) during 2021 as well.