Alzheon Inc. has raised $100 million in a series E financing round to push its oral drug candidate for early Alzheimer’s disease (AD), ALZ-801 (valiltramiprosate), through a late-stage, Apolloe4 study.

The annual Companies to Watch report, which was just released, looks closely at seven companies flying under the radar that are developing antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for treating cancer. Companies examined in the new report are Adcendo ApS, Araris Biotech AG, Go Therapeutics Inc., Heidelberg Pharma AG, Pheon Therapeutics Ltd., Tallac Therapeutics Inc. and Tubulis GmbH.

Biopharma deal value surged in May to $18.76 billion, up 23% from April's $15.28 billion. This increase follows March’s $8.29 billion and February’s $7.76 billion, although represents a decline from January’s $27.9 billion. The monthly average for 2024 stands at $15.64 billion, compared to the $18.14 billion monthly average in 2023. Meanwhile, the value of biopharma M&As rose to $4.75 billion in May, an increase from April’s $1.33 billion, which was the lowest figure in nearly a year.

The BioWorld Drug Developers Index (BDDI) mirrored the movements of the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, up in May after a decline at the end of April. BDDI ended May up 1.82% after closing in April down 4.8% from the beginning of the year.

The U.S. FTC’s campaign against the Orange Book listing of patents claiming device components gained momentum when a federal judge in New Jersey ordered Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. to delist five device patents pertaining to its Proair HFA (albuterol sulfate) inhaler.

Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat recently called orexin a “red hot neuropsychiatry target,” and the recent Sleep 2024 meeting in Houston bolstered such a view. Also known as hypocretin, the neuropeptide orexin is known to play a crucial role in regulating wakefulness, arousal, and appetite. It’s made in the hypothalamus, and was discovered in the late 1990s. Investigators found that people with narcolepsy can show a deficiency of orexin due to the loss of neurons.

Just as it is for terminally ill cancer patients, time is of the essence for people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, the clinical meaningfulness of Eli Lilly and Co.’s donanemab is the time it gives patients before the disease progresses, Reisa Sperling, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told the U.S. FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee June 10.