Acutus Medical Inc. revealed plans after the Nasdaq closing bell on Nov. 8 to abandon the electrophysiology business as part of a massive restructuring that will leave the company entirely committed to manufacturing and distribution of Medtronic plc’s left-heart access products. The shift will put 65% of Acutus employees out of work and leaves the future of its cardiac ablation and mapping products up in the air.

Orsobio Inc., already in the clinic with three candidates, has completed its $60 million series A financing. The company, CEO Mani Subramanian told BioWorld, has taken its time to find the right programs, put them together and only raised capital when it saw the programs had legs. Even the series A is a measured step, as Subramanian called the financing “modest.”

Kynexis BV has launched with €57 million in series A financing with the aim of using its experience in psychiatry, neurology, and drug discovery and development to advance therapeutics for brain diseases.

Gate Bioscience Inc., a new(ish) company with a new class of drugs in the works, emerged from stealth mode and disclosed a $60 million series A financing led by Versant Ventures and A16z Bio + Health. Arch Venture Partners and GV took part in the financing as well.

What’s it going to take for Australia’s biotech industry to be more self-sufficient? Although Australia is far away from the rest of the world, no one is an island when it comes to biotechnology, Ausbiotech CEO Lorraine Chiroiu said during the Ausbiotech 2023 conference held in Brisbane Nov. 1-3. Investors gathered to riff about what they were looking for in Australian biotech investments and what needs to change for the sector to be sustainable. All agreed that the science in Australia is top-notch but that the ecosystem needs more investment to be competitive.

Israel’s finance ministry has increased the amount of funding high-tech companies with a short runway, including biotechs, can apply for under a fast-track scheme run by independent, publicly funded agency The Israel Innovation Authority, in response to the country’s war against Hamas.

In October, the biopharma industry secured $11.6 billion in financings, marking the highest monthly amount since June 2021 when value totaled $12.3 billion. Biopharma financings have averaged $6.1 billion per month so far in 2023, an increase from the $5.07 billion monthly average for all of 2022.