After a multiyear incubation period at New York-based Pfizer Inc., Springworks Therapeutics LLC sprang to life with four Pfizer-derived candidates and an oversubscribed $103 million kitty to see them to the next stage of development. The syndicate for the company’s series A included Bain Capital Life Sciences, Bain Capital Double Impact, Orbimed and Lifearc (formerly MRC Technology), along with Pfizer, which also handed over global rights to the initial compounds. Read More

Fusion Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Hamilton, Ontario, said it completed a second closing of its series A financing, securing an additional $21 million in capital and bringing the total capital raised to $46 million. Read More

Sinovac Biotech Ltd., of Beijing, reported preliminary top-line data from its phase III trial testing its varicella vaccine against chickenpox. Read More

DUBLIN – Paris-based anti-infectives developer Da Volterra SA is planning a phase II trial of its lead product, DAV-132, in Europe in the coming months and is also looking to open an IND in the U.S. shortly. Read More

An international research team led by Australia’s Walter and Elizabeth Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) has shown for the first time that carbohydrates on the surface of malaria parasites play a key role in infecting their mosquito and human hosts, which may lead to the development of improved new vaccines. Read More

HONG KONG – CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. received orphan drug status for its mitoxantrone liposome product from the FDA, though the Chinese company warned that much work remains to get the phase II-stage drug across the finish line in the initial U.S. and China markets. Read More

Regenera Pharma Ltd. CEO Jordan Rubinson told BioWorld that “there’s over $1 billion dollars of market value, of revenues, in the first five years” if the company can succeed in a planned phase III trial and win approval for RPH-201 in nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), “essentially a stroke of the optic nerve.” Read More

Soligenix Inc., of Princeton, N.J., said it will participate in a research project grant awarded to the University of Hawai’i at Manoa for the development of a thermostabilized Ebola vaccine, with Soligenix awarded funding of about $700,000 over five years. Read More

For the second time this year, the FDA released a draft biosimilar guidance. The latest one describes what type of information a biosimilar sponsor should obtain about the structural/physicochemical and functional attributes of the reference biologic, how that information should be used to develop an analytical similarity assessment plan for the proposed biosimilar and what statistical approaches are recommended for evaluating analytical similarity. Read More