Novartis AG planted another stake in the fertile digital therapeutics terrain through a collaboration with Pear Therapeutics Inc. The Basel, Switzerland-based pharma will work with Pear, of Boston, to advance development of Pear's Thrive digital therapeutic for individuals with schizophrenia. Read More

At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in January, Idera Pharmaceuticals Inc. CEO Vincent Milano said what everybody knows: When it comes to immunotherapy and checkpoint inhibitors, the field has "still a long way to go for many, many patients." Read More

Inscripta Inc., a company developing a full suite of gene editing tools that it hopes will democratize access to CRISPR-based research and development, has landed a $55.5 million series C funding that it said will help accelerate the development and commercialization of its platform. The financing follows a $23 million series B round in February 2017 and a $6 million series A round in February 2016. Read More

HONG KONG – A Chinese study has shown for the first time that the powerful antidepressant effects of ketamine are due to blockade of rapid neuronal firing in the brain's lateral habenula (LHb) region. Such blockade was found to disinhibit reward centers and relieve depressive symptoms rapidly in animal models. Read More

SINGAPORE – China, India, Japan and Korea are prominent Asian players in the global biotech space, while Singapore has emerged as an increasingly notable global contributor, but there remains a gap in terms of contributions from other parts of Southeast Asia. A common theme emerging this week at the Phar-East Pharma and Biotech Festival (formerly known as the BioPharma Asia Convention) focused on ways to foster biotech and bioentrepreneurship in the region. Read More

Atara Biotherapeutics Inc., of South San Francisco, priced its previously announced public offering of $150 million worth of stock at $35 per share. Read More

Engeneic Ltd., of New York, said preclinical findings published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics highlight the potential of the company's targeted, bacterially derived nanocells to enhance the delivery of intensive chemotherapy to tumors while limiting toxicity to normal tissues in aggressive pediatric malignancies, including neuroblastoma. Read More

Zymeworks Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, said it added new sites in Canada and the U.S. for its ongoing phase I study testing ZW-25, a bispecific antibody targeting two distinct domains of the HER2 receptor, in gastric and breast cancer patients. Read More