Canbridge Pharmaceuticals Inc. has raised HK$604 million ($77.4 million) with a listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange, selling about 56.3 million shares (1228.HK) at HK$12.18 per share. The shares fell to HK$8.90 at the close of trading Dec. 10. Almost half the funds will support advancement of Canbridge’s lead candidate, CAN-008, a glycosylated CD95-Fc fusion protein in phase II testing for glioblastoma, while another quarter will support other major pipeline programs.
Cansino Biologics Inc. has entered a development and commercial supply partnership with Aerogen Ltd. for an inhalable version of its COVID-19 vaccine, Convidecia, also known as Ad5-nCoV. Cansino will combine Convidecia with Aerogen’s vibrating mesh aerosol drug delivery technology to produce a consistent droplet size for optimal lung deposition.
A cocktail of monoclonal neutralizing antibodies developed by Brii Biosciences Ltd. has become “the first locally-discovered and approved SARS-CoV-2 target-specific treatment in China, through a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled trial,” Rogers Luo, president and general manager of greater China at the company, told BioWorld.
Pharmaceutical companies in China will cut the prices for more than five dozen drugs by an average of 61.7% to get them on the latest version of the country’s National Drug Reimbursement List. The National Healthcare Security Administration released the new list on Dec. 3, 2021. The new list includes 74 new drugs, the vast majority of which are branded products without generic versions in China. Only seven of the new drugs on the list have generic versions.
Abogen Biosciences Co. Ltd. has raised $300 million in a series C+ round to support the development of its mRNA products, specifically to support the development of its COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and expand to the global market.
Alphamab Oncology Co. Ltd. has won conditional marketing approval from China’s NMPA for KN-035 (envafolimab), the world’s first PD-1/PD-L1 antibody to be administered by subcutaneous injection. The drug was cleared for use in treating adult patients with advanced solid tumors who have unresectable or metastatic advanced microsatellite instability-high phenotype/mismatch-repair deficiency. That includes patients with advanced colorectal cancer who have experienced disease progression after previous therapy with fluorouracil, oxaliplatin and irinotecan.
Bright Peak Therapeutics Inc. has licensed rights to use Livzon Mabpharm Inc.’s anti-PD-1 candidate, LZM-009, to develop its own PD-1 targeted immunocytokines (PD-1 ICs). Bertolt Kreft, chief scientific officer for Bright Peak, told BioWorld that Livzon’s phase II anti-PD-1 “exhibits a promising initial safety and efficacy profile, making it well-suited to the task.
A Chinese patent covering methods and compositions for the use of CRISPR-Cas9 in eukaryotes has been granted to Dublin-based Ers Genomics Ltd., making what Michael Arciero, vice president of intellectual property and commercial development at the company, called “a strong but not surprising statement by China,” which has made the biotechnology industry one of its top national priorities.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has agreed to provide Clover Biopharmaceuticals Ltd. with an additional $36.9 million to support development of SCB-2019, a recombinant trimeric Spike-protein subunit COVID-19 vaccine.
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