At Biocom’s Global Partnering and Investor Conference, representatives from the business development departments at various pharmaceutical companies provided an update on their appetites for deals. The mood was fairly upbeat because, let’s face it, large pharma has become dependent on external development.
Generate Biomedicines Inc. proved that enthusiasm hasn’t waned for TSLP as a target by pricing an IPO selling 25 million shares at $16 each for proceeds of $400 million. Generate’s lead compound is phase III-stage TSLP-targeting antibody GB-0895 and the company’s assigned Nasdaq ticker is GENB. The offering is expected to close on March 2.
The U.S. FDA’s expectations that its new default position of basing marketing authorization of novel drugs on one adequate, well-controlled trial may be overstated. In explaining the policy in a recent article in TheNew England Journal of Medicine, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and CBER Director Vinay Prasad said they expect the initiative will create a “surge in drug development,” substantially reduce development costs and will speed drugs to market. While the initiative could reduce the time to the U.S. market, those expectations don’t take into consideration global norms and payer expectations.
Targeting rare cardiomyopathy conditions with no approved disease-modifying therapies, Atrium Therapeutics Inc. started operations in San Diego, assuming the public listing and technology once held by Avidity Biosciences Inc., an RNA company acquired by Novartis AG for about $12 billion. Novartis closed the M&A, announced last October, as Atrium unveiled its pipeline and a $270 million cash position.
U.S. scrutiny of China’s trade practices, especially in the biotech sector, continues to escalate as the U.S. International Trade Commission launches two factfinding investigations Congress mandated in the fiscal 2026 appropriations.
Eli Lilly and Co. got a breather when the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the company doesn’t owe Research Corporation Technologies Inc. (RCT) royalties on its diabetes drugs under a licensing agreement Lilly had made with Phillips Petroleum Co. in 1990 and that Phillips later sold to RCT.
The U.S. FDA approved Allurion Technologies Inc.’s premarket application for its swallowable gastric balloon system, which features its Smart Capsule, for weight loss. The clearance is boon for the company as GLP-1 agonists gets increasingly adopted to treat obesity. The approval also brings to the market a new non-invasive option to patients looking for alternative ways to lose weight.
At Biocom’s Global Partnering and Investor Conference, venture capitalists (VCs) on multiple panels offered their thoughts on the state of venture investing and offered advice for startups interested in securing funding. Sentiment for early stage investment was somewhat mixed, but trended negative as VCs acknowledged that it’s a tough environment in which to raise capital.
The psychedelic and psychedelic-like drug space made another stride as Ataibeckley Inc. disclosed positive top-line data from a double‑blind, placebo‑controlled, first-in-patient phase IIa study testing oral R-MDMA therapy EMP‑01 in adults with social anxiety disorder (SAD).
In an all-cash transaction valued at €780 million (US$920 million), Asahi Kasei Corp. offered to buy Aicuris Anti-infective Cures AG, expanding its infectious disease portfolio with a marketed cytomegalovirus product and a herpes treatment nearing an NDA.
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