The Weekly Roundup newsletter curates the top five - deals, pipeline, funding, and news from the past week.

The complete list is available here: Industry Updates

🤝Deals and Collaborations

1️⃣ ProBioGen and ImmunOs Therapeutics team up to deliver innovative therapy for cancer patients. Extension of their partnership for further large-scale manufacturing of clinical material for IOS-1002, ImmunOs' lead program for the treatment of cancer.

2️⃣ Biogen buys into Denali’s amyloid beta programme. Biogen has taken up an option on a technology developed by Denali that it thinks could help improve the safety and efficacy of amyloid-targeting drugs for Alzheimer’s disease.

3️⃣ Discovery Life Sciences acquires ReachBio Research Labs. The acquisition will allow Discovery to scale its consolidated drug discovery and preclinical development offerings to give customers access to a broader range of innovative and specialized cell biology services.

4️⃣ Caris Life Sciences, Flare Therapeutics enter strategic preferred portfolio partnership. Flare will leverage Caris' next-generation sequencing technology for the molecular testing of patients treated with Flare's assets.

5️⃣ Pyramid Biosciences expands the oncology pipeline with in-licensing of GQ1010, a potential best-in-class TROP2 targeted antibody drug conjugate (ADC), from GeneQuantum Healthcare. Agreement to develop and commercialize GQ1010, worldwide except for Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan)

⏫ Pipeline and Approvals

1️⃣ Anti-infective: SCYNEXIS, a biotechnology company pioneering innovative medicines to overcome and prevent difficult-to-treat and drug-resistant infections, today announced the presentation of interim data across a diverse array of infection types.

2️⃣ Dermatology: Don't sweat it! FDA OKs single-use sodium patch to curb excessive underarm perspiration.

3️⃣ Neurology: Kringle Pharma completes the last patient enrolled in the Phase III study for the treatment of acute spinal cord injury.

4️⃣ Autoimmune: US FDA issues a complete response letter for Alvotech’s BLA for AVT02, a high-concentration biosimilar candidate for Humira (adalimumab).

5️⃣ Vaccine: Ghana approves University of Oxford's malaria vaccine ahead of key WHO review.

💰 Funding

1️⃣ Alentis rides in zolbetuximab's slipstream to secure $105mn series C for anti-fibrotic ambitions. Funding will be used to expand the team and will support Phase II and Phase I programs of Alentis’ lead investigational products ALE.F02 and ALE.C04 respectively as well as the CLDN1 platform development.

2️⃣ Aer Therapeutics closes $36mn Series A to advance the development of AER-01, an innovative mucolytic for the treatment of lung diseases. Proceeds to advance AER-01 into the clinic for treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); a unique targeted approach to treating patients affected by mucus plugs.

3️⃣ BioVentrix raises $48.5mn to take its ventricle-reshaping heart failure implants to the FDA. Funding will support BioVentrix’s submissions for full premarket approval, slated for later this year, as well as preparations for a U.S. commercial launch.

4️⃣ Berwyn Biotech company raises $8.7mn to advance Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s treatment. Funding to advance its experimental treatment for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Annovis conducted two Phase 1/2 studies: one in AD patients and one in both AD and PD patients, in the AD/PD study buntanetap showed improvements in cognition in AD as well as body and function in PD patients.

5️⃣ TORL BioTherapeutics launches with a $158mn series B financing to advance development of novel oncology biologics. Funding to advance TORL-1-23, a first-in-class, clinical-stage ADC targeting Claudin 6, TORL-2-307, a clinical-stage ADC targeting Claudin 18.2 and other novel clinical and preclinical stage programs.

📰 Interesting News

1️⃣ Which are 8 Korean biotech firms that face delisting risk this year? NewGLAB Pharma, SD Biotechnologies, and Cellivery Therapeutics received a disclaimer of opinion from their auditor for the first time last year.

2️⃣ Korean scientists publish breakthroughs in high-resolution X-ray imaging. Successful follow-up studies of the technology could achieve a 1-nanometer resolution of X-ray imaging, a resolution equivalent to that of expensive electron microscopes.

3️⃣ Five recent advancements in Parkinson’s disease research. Focused ultrasound: a novel therapy for Parkinson’s with essential tremor; Deep brain stimulation and gene therapy for Parkinson’s make headway; New study finds link between the gut microbiome and Parkinson’s disease; AbbVie’s candidate hits the wall but could it be a blockbuster drug?; Landmark NADPARK trial shows improved NAD metabolism in individuals with Parkinson’s.

4️⃣ Korea ranks 5th in the global share of pharmaceutical clinical trials. Korea ranked fifth in the “national share” of the worldwide clinical trial registration numbers, breaking the previous record.

5️⃣ mRNA vaccines: a promising future. mRNA technologies have a bright future, while vaccines are an overall good target for mRNA technologies, other areas like protein replacement therapies, cancer therapies, etc. may also be addressable.