HONG KONG – South Korea's major pharmaceutical company GC Pharma Corp., based in Yong-in, Gyeonggi-do, and the Cambridge, Mass.-based U.S. biotech Vaxess Technologies Inc., have partnered to globally commercialize a flu vaccine patch based on Vaxess' Mimix Smart Release Patch technology. The patch is designed to deliver medicines and vaccines through silk microneedles that dissolve at a precise rate.

Australian scientists have discovered promising new candidate analgesic molecules derived from a Penicillium fungus, which represents a promising resource for the development of safer new analgesics, they reported in the Oct. 14, 2019, edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

BEIJING – Cancer and autoimmune specialist Innocare Pharma Ltd., of Beijing, is seeking a pre-revenue listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) to raise capital to advance its BTK inhibitor, ICP-022, to an NDA filing in China by the end of this year.

HONG KONG – South Korea's Helixmith Co. Ltd. has announced the results of a phase III trial extension testing VM-202 (donaperminogene seltoplasmid), a regenerative plasmid DNA gene therapy candidate, in diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN).

HONG KONG – South Korea's biopharmaceutical venture Genome & Co. Ltd. recently secured KRW30.2 billion (US$25.2 million) in series C investment with an IPO and global clinical trial plans for next year.

HONG KONG – Singapore's Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Lucence Diagnostics Pte. Ltd. have teamed up to develop a next-generation decision support tool for liver cancer patients. The visualization tool, known as Liver3D, was designed to reduce the risks associated with liver cancer surgery. It does so by developing machine learning models based on radiology images of liver cancer patients for clinical decision support.

HONG KONG – Upin & Co. Ltd., a fund and asset management company headquartered in London, plans to invest a total of KRW2 trillion (US$1.7 billion) over three years in the South Korean biopharma industry.

HONG KONG – Kobiolabs Inc., a microbiome-based venture from Seoul, South Korea, has secured a KRW26.6 billion (US$22.2 million) investment. Founded in 2014, the venture has achieved KRW193 billion of enterprise value.

Australian researchers have developed the first potent new small-molecule inhibitors capable of blocking the activation of apoptotic cell death before it causes damage to mitochondria, they reported in a study published in the Oct. 7, 2019, issue of Nature Chemical Biology.

Days after going public, Viela Bio Inc. nailed down a deal with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp. to develop and commercialize Viela’s humanized anti-CD19 monoclonal antibody, inebilizumab, in nine Asia regions for the rare disease called neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD), as well as other potential future indications.