With Gilead Sciences Inc. stepping away from its exclusive option rights to casdatifan in treating cancer, Arcus Biosciences Inc. has decided to move on by pricing a $150 million common stock offering. Arcus said Gilead’s rights to the HIF-2a inhibitor, which just produced positive early phase data, had expired.
With the U.S. FDA’s approval of Vimkunya, Bavarian Nordic A/S is now in the chikungunya virus infection mix along with Valneva SE’s Ixchiq. A single-dose, adjuvanted virus-like particle-based vaccine to protect against the chikungunya virus infection, Vimkunya is the first of its kind available in the U.S. for those age 12 and older.
A second pentavalent vaccine for preventing meningococcal disease has been approved by the U.S. FDA. GSL plc’s Penmenvy will now go up against Pfizer Inc.’s Penbraya, which had a two-year head start in the market.
The market took a strong liking to the latest U.S. FDA guidance for Moleculin Biotech Inc.’s upcoming Miracle phase III trial testing annamycin in cancer. So much so that the company’s stock (NASDAQ:MBRX) soared 202% on Feb. 13 to close at $1.27 a share.
Novartis AG is paying nearly $1 billion up front to buy privately held Anthos Therapeutics Inc. in a deal that eventually could top out around $3.1 billion. Novartis, coming back to where it started as it and Blackstone Life Sciences founded Anthos in 2019, is entering a crowded space.
4D Molecular Therapeutics Inc.’s gene therapy, 4D-150, in wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) produced positive phase IIb data as the company preps two phase III studies set to begin this year.
Sionna Therapeutics Inc. has opened on Nasdaq in the year’s fourth IPO, this one priced at the upper end of its original per-share range at $18. The cystic fibrosis therapy developer is looking for gross proceeds of about $191 million by offering 10.58 million shares of common stock. On Feb. 7, shares (NASDAQ:SION) closed the day 39% upward at $25.
Ascentage Pharma Group Corp. Ltd. has priced the first IPO of the year in the U.S. The offering of 7.32 million shares has the Suzhou, China, and Rockville, Md.-based company looking for gross proceeds of about $126.4 million, assuming a price of $17.25 per share.
New and positive data for Maia Biotechnology Inc.’s lead candidate for a particularly deadly and advanced lung cancer propelled the stock modestly higher on Feb. 4. The pivotal phase II THIO-101 study of Thio, a telomere-targeting agent sequenced with Regeneron Inc.’s immune checkpoint inhibitor, Libtayo (cemiplimab), as a third-line treatment for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) showed median overall survival of 16.9 months for the 22 NSCLC patients who received at least one dose of Thio in parts A and B.
