A little over a month after Versant Ventures-back Vividion Therapeutics Inc. filed to raise $100 million in an IPO, Bayer AG is paying $1.5 billion up front, with the promise of $500 million more in milestone payments, to take over the firm and its small-molecule precision oncology and immunology platform. Read More
Pepgen Inc., a company developing new therapies for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) from its Enhanced Delivery Oligonucleotide platform, has closed an oversubscribed $112.5 million crossover financing. Funds from the round will be used to advance the DMD and DM1 candidates to the clinic in 2022 and 2023, respectively, as well as to expand its Boston-based team. The latest round follows Pepgen’s $45 million series A, led by RA Capital and announced in December 2020. Read More
Positive phase III top-line results for Valneva SA’s chikungunya virus vaccine candidate, VLA-1553, show the study met its primary endpoint of inducing neutralizing antibody titers, setting it up for possible accelerated approval. Read More
Schrödinger Inc. has paired up with Zai Lab Ltd. to collaborate on an oncology program targeting DNA damage response (DDR) in a deal that could net Schrödinger up to $338 million. Read More
Preliminary real-world data showed that Chinese inactivated vaccines are 63% protective against the COVID-19 Delta variant, China’s top epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan said at the 24th Respiratory Disease Academic Conference of Guangdong Medical Association in Guangzhou. Read More
Investigators at the University of California at San Francisco have identified a confounder that appears to be behind the purported anti-SARS-CoV-2 effects of a number of therapeutic candidates that were identified via repurposing. Read More
Burning Rock Biotech Ltd. has formed a global strategic partnership with Impact Therapeutics Inc. to develop companion diagnostics for a pipeline of drugs in the field of synthetic lethality. Read More
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has accused Pfizer Inc., together with a smaller U.K. player, of illegally overcharging the National Health Service (NHS) for the anti-epilepsy drug branded Epanutin (phenytoin sodium) before it went off patent in 2012. Read More
Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal took the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board to task for ordering Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. to “forfeit excess revenues” generated by Soliris (eculizumab) between 2009 and 2017. Read More
New hires and promotions in the biopharma industry, including: Amryt, Can-Fite, Eisai, Faze, Glycomimetics, Homology, Ionctura, Kalgene, Kallyope, Maia, Pardes. Read More
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Abcentra, Aimmune, Beyondspring, Cytomx, Effector, Enzyvant, Humanigen, Inovio, Nordic Nanovector, Pfizer, Pharmaxis. Read More
