HONG KONG – Partnerships are reshaping the pharmaceutical industry across Asia, said speakers during day two of the Phar-East 2020 virtual conference. While industry has “tended to have a go-at-it-alone approach,” doing all its discovery, development and commercialization work in-house, “nothing ever came in or out. I think that’s really changed in recent years,” said Kazia Therapeutics Ltd. CEO James Garner.
HONG KONG – New approaches to trials, digitalization and the effective use of advance technologies like artificial intelligence are reshaping how clinical trials are conducted, drugs are discovered, and new devices are developed, said participants at the Asia-focused Phar-East 2020 conference on Dec. 8.
HONG KONG – Taipei, Taiwan-based Pharmaengine Inc. has signed a collaboration and licensing deal with Cambridge, U.K.-based Sentinel Oncology Ltd. for the latter’s checkpoint kinase 1 inhibitor, SOL-578. Through the agreement, Sentinel will receive an exclusivity payment and Pharmaengine will fund the IND-enabling studies.
HONG KONG – Olix Pharmaceuticals Inc. has raised ₩41.5 billion (US$37.90 million) to support the company’s U.S. expansion and advance its pipeline globally.
HONG KONG and BEIJING – Hong Kong-listed China Grand Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Holdings Ltd. and Niel, Belgium-based mRNA vaccine specialist Etherna Immunotherapies NV are setting up a joint venture to develop, produce and commercialize mRNA prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines.
3D Medicines Inc. has licensed in from Aravive Inc. a phase Ib-completed GAS6/AXL inhibitor known as AVB-500 in a deal worth up to $219 million. The Chinese firm will have the rights to develop and commercialize the drug candidate across all oncology indications in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
HONG KONG – Kira Pharmaceuticals is riding high after completing a $46 million fundraiser and appointing Frederick Beddingfield as CEO. “The $46 million comprises a series A of $18 million and a series B of $26 million, with investors Quan Capital, 6 Dimensions Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, and Sinopharm Capital participating in both rounds,” Beddingfield told BioWorld.
HONG KONG, BEIJING and CAJICA, Colombia – Anvisa, Brazil’s health care surveillance agency, has halted the final-stage trials for Beijing, China-based Sinovac Biotech Ltd.’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate Coronavac after a serious adverse event occurred on Oct. 29 and was communicated to the regulator. Anvisa then evaluated the data and suspended the trials after weighing the risk-benefit of continuing them in the country, it said.
HONG KONG – Incheon, South Korea-based Celltrion Inc. has gleaned positive results in a small early stage trial for its anti-COVID-19 monoclonal antibody CT-P59. The results were presented at the Korean Society of Infectious Diseases’ 2020 fall conference, which took place on Nov. 5.
Yantai, China-based biologics developer Remegen Ltd. launched the biggest pre-revenue biotech IPO in Hong Kong this year by raising HK$3.99 billion ($514.5 million) on Nov 9. With this IPO, Remegen’s CEO Jianmin Fang told BioWorld in an exclusive interview, the company aims to take its assets abroad.
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