The Hong Kong biotech sector saw record growth this year, expanding 13%, fueled largely by investment in innovation ranging from CRISPR gene editing tools, cell therapies and artificial intelligence in drug discovery, speakers at the BIO Hong Kong conference said Sept. 10.

“The comment I hear a lot from scientists … is that science has no borders,” Arif Noorani, partner at Sidley Austin LLP, said while addressing the panel audience at Asia Bio 2025 in Singapore. “I agree, but the reality is, we do have a lot of borders.”

Braveheart Bio Inc. is paying $65 million up front to license Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd.’s oral hypertrophic cardiomyopathy drug candidate called HRS-1893.

Argo Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd. and its RNAi work drew Novartis AG back to the table for a third time, as the companies entered a potential $5.2 billion deal involving cardiovascular-focused assets, including a right to first negotiation for BW-00112, an angiopoietin-like protein 3-targeting siRNA in phase II testing in severe hypertriglyceridemia.

Epigenic Therapeutics Co. Ltd. closed a $60 million series B round to support clinical development of lead gene therapy candidates EPI-003 for chronic hepatitis B virus and EPI-001 for hypercholesterolemia.

“New explosions in biotechnology are allowing us to interrogate cancers at a very sophisticated level compared to before,” Dennis Slamon told audience members at the Global Bio Conference in Seoul, South Korea Sept. 3.

Argenica Therapeutics Ltd. saw its stock drop 56% following mixed results for its ARG-007 phase II Seancon trial in acute ischemic stroke patients undergoing endovascular revascularization, or thrombectomy.

Propanc Biopharma, Inc. plans to acquire $100 million of Ethereum cryptocurrency over the next 12 months to accelerate its pipeline. The company is advancing its lead candidate, PRP, to enter a phase Ib trial in 30 to 40 advanced cancer patients with malignant solid tumors.

Detailed data are expected later, but partners Biontech SE and Duality Biologics Co. Ltd. are celebrating a phase III interim analysis readout demonstrating that HER2-targeting antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) trastuzumab pamirtecan hit the primary endpoint of progression-free survival in patients with HER2-positive unresectable or metastatic breast cancer who have previously received trastuzumab and a taxane-based chemotherapy.