After raising HKD$320 million (US$40.8 million) in its IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last week, Immuneonco Biopharmaceuticals Co. Ltd.’s stock has continued to rise, and analysts are expecting the Hong Kong market to pick up after a slack start to the year. Read More
Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd.’s HER3-directed antibody-drug conjugate patritumab deruxtecan showed clinically meaningful and durable responses in patients with EGFR-mutated locally advanced or metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the Herthena-Lung1 phase II trial. Read More
In its second big pharma deal to date, Shape Therapeutics Inc. drew Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. to the table in a potential $1.5 billion-plus collaboration initially aimed at developing gene therapies for ocular diseases. The multitarget agreement, which includes options for additional targets and tissue types, will combine Shape’s AI-driven adeno-associated virus (AAV) platform and Otsuka’s expertise in ophthalmology to develop intravitreally delivered AAV therapies. Read More
HLB Co. Ltd. is ready to take half of the liver cancer treatment market with its potential first-line treatment, rivoceranib, currently undergoing U.S. FDA review, company chairman Jin Yang-gon said, backed by positive survival data that beat out competitors by three months. Read More
Springboarding off the success of its AI-based imaging software for cancer detection, the deep learning-based artificial intelligence (AI) company Lunit Inc. has another AI software, called the Lunit Scope, up its sleeve for which it hopes to gain U.S. FDA approval by 2025. Read More
China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has given the green light to Gloria Biosciences Co. Ltd.’s anti-PD-1 monoclonal antibody, zimberelimab (Yutuo, GLS-010), for treating second-line cervical cancer, making it the first immune checkpoint inhibitor approved in China for treating the disease. Read More
South Korean biopharmaceutical firms are facing a harsher climate and an uphill battle both domestically and abroad, amid the larger economic downturn that has slowed everything from new drug approval to dealmaking. At the Global Pharma Key Opinion Leaders (GPKOL) 2023 Symposium held at the El Tower on Sept. 7 in Seocho-gu, Seoul, officials from the industry, government and academia gathered to discuss strategies on bouncing back from the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read More
Brii Biosciences Ltd.’s therapeutic vaccine for hepatitis B (HBV), BRII-179 (VBI-2601), induced functional immune responses – inducing broad antibody and T-cell responses – in patients with chronic HBV in a phase II trial that evaluated the vaccine in combination with pegylated interferon-alfa, according to interim results. Read More
South Korean CAR T developer Curocell Inc. said on Sept. 8 that it passed a preliminary screening to list on Kosdaq – news that comes four months after its application was made to the Korea exchange on May 2, 2023, and a year after its first failed application in January 2022. Read More
In August 2023 biopharma companies raised a collective $4.02 billion through 86transactions, down from the previous seven months’ average of $5.53 billion. Read More
Google’s Scott Penberthy joins the podcast for a visionary discussion that scans the horizon for startling changes artificial intelligence will bring to drug development in the relatively near future. Read More
Biopharma happenings in Asia-Pacific, such as deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Biocytogen, Chr. Hansen, Imidomics, Myricx, Novartis, Novozymes, Samsung Bioepis, Sandoz, Sinovac, Tnax. Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations in Asia-Pacific: Arcturus, Astrazeneca, CSL Seqirus, Gloria, Neurophth. Read More
