Newly founded Lianbio, with offices in Shanghai and San Francisco, aims to quickly establish a presence in China and Asia with late-stage assets in-licensed from Bridgebio Pharma Inc. and Myokardia Inc. in two deals amounting to $531.5 million and $187.5 million, respectively.

PERTH, Australia – Patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (r/r AML) who have received three or more lines of therapy are often too sick to get much-needed bone marrow transplants and often run out of options.

HONG KONG – Daejeon, South Korea-based biotechnology company G2GBIO Inc. has raised ₩11.4 billion (US$9.53 million) from a series B financing round, with the funds to be used on clinical trials for a sustained-release Alzheimer’s treatment as well as nonclinical trials for diabetes and sustained-release postoperative pain treatments.

The first bispecific antibody to win regulatory approval, Removab (catumaxomab) was voluntarily withdrawn due to commercial reasons. Now Chinese biotech Lintonpharm Co. Ltd., of Guangzhou, said it plans to move catumaxomab to a global phase III trial following an IND approval from China’s NMPA, investigating the trifunctional bispecific antibody in patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis, a form of advanced gastric cancer.

BEIJING – After his role as associate director and head of chemistry at Eli Lilly and Co., Brandeis-trained Jingye Zhou founded Eccogene Inc. in Shanghai in 2018 to focus on developing small-molecule drugs for metabolism and immune-related diseases.

BEIJING – After being a health care investor for 21 years, Jonathan Wang decided to co-found biotech startup Inmagene Biopharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. in July 2019 to seek success in the China market using the experience and insights he had accumulated over the years.

HONG KONG – MBD Co. Ltd. and Azothbio Inc., both based in South Korea, have entered an agreement for rare cancer drug development using an AI-powered drug discovery platform.

In its first step into Japan, Agex Therapeutics Inc. accelerates its development of engineering hypoimmunogenic cells, universal cells that can be used on patients who didn’t generate the original cell and without the need to use immunosuppressants.