Apogee Therapeutics Inc. emerged from stealth with $169 million in financing and a pipeline of four preclinical antibody development programs that take aim at major immunological and inflammatory disorders.

Biopharma financings are tracking only 3% below 2019’s full-year total, but the volume of activity is at its lowest point since 2017. With a total of $56.1 billion raised, 2022 is currently the sixth best financing year on record, but it is significantly behind some of the years that rank higher.

Vega Therapeutics Inc. emerged from stealth in advance of a podium presentation at this year’s American Society of Hematology meeting in New Orleans. The company, a spin-out from Star Therapeutics Inc., will disclose preclinical data on its lead drug candidate VGA-039, a first-in-class antibody in development for von Willebrand disease.

Accession Therapeutics Ltd. has raised £16.6 million (US$20.3 million) in a series A round, as it prepares to take two targeted oncolytic/payload combination viruses into the clinic. At the same time, the company disclosed that the scientist who devised the tumor-only targeting mechanism is Alan Parker, professor of translational virotherapies at Cardiff University.

When the COVID-19 pandemic effectively shut down travel and conferences starting in the first part of 2020, the general lament was that the lack of face-to-face interaction would hamper biopharma companies’ ability to secure deals and investments. Instead, the opposite happened. Now, coming off two years of record-breaking financing, the biopharma sector is facing an inevitable correction, though a handful of venture capital panelists suggested there’s room for optimism.