The Friday Five newsletter will focus on the top five - deals, pipeline, funding, and news of the week. The complete list is available here: Industry Updates

🤝Deals and Collaborations

1️⃣ Huadong strikes a $1bn deal for Asia rights to four ADC candidates. Huadong Medicine will acquire Asia rights (ex-Japan) for two Heidelberg Pharma ADC candidates with options on two more.

2️⃣ Virios Therapeutics announces research collaboration with Bateman Horne Center exploring the potential of combination antiviral therapy for treating Long COVID, otherwise known as Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19

3️⃣ Zhongze in-licenses CNS candidate for Schizophrenia and Parkinson's. DGX-001 is an oral first-in-class candidate designed to stimulate the central nervous system via the gut-brain axis using the vagus nerve. The candidate is aimed at treating negative symptoms and cognitive impairment in schizophrenia, and for non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's Disease

4️⃣ Ray Therapeutics, Forge Biologics enter Gene Therapy manufacturing pact. Forge will provide adeno-associated viral process development, scale-up engineering, and cGMP manufacturing services for Ray’s program, Ray-001.

5️⃣ Haisco Pharma in-licensed China rights to Exservan, an oral film formulation of riluzole for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

⏫ Pipeline and Approvals

1️⃣ FDA approves J&J’s myeloma cell therapy

2️⃣ CTI BioPharma announces FDA Accelerated Approval of VONJO (pacritinib) for the treatment of adult patients with Myelofibrosis and Thrombocytopenia

3️⃣ Valneva receives emergency use authorization from Bahrain for its inactivated COVID-19 vaccine VLA2001

4️⃣ GlaxoSmithKline, Medicago’s plant-based COVID vaccine, Covifenz, wins first approval in Canada

5️⃣ Tezepelumab-ekko (marketed as Tezpire), a biologic therapy for patients aged 12 years or older with severe asthma developed by AstraZeneca and Amgen, wins FDA approval

💰 Funding

1️⃣ NextRNA launches with $56mn in funding to bring transformative non-coding RNA-directed medicines. Funds will be used by the company to augment its target and drug discovery engine, expand its pipeline, and advance lead programs.

2️⃣ Flagship Pioneering unveils Vesalius Therapeutics to revolutionize the treatment of several diseases. Vesalius' DIAMOND technology platform combines data from large clinical databases, genetics and genomics information, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and proprietary experimental models to redefine how we think about and treat common illnesses like autoimmune disorders, diabetes, and neurologic diseases such as Alzheimer's.

3️⃣ ConserV Bioscience has been awarded £415,000 ($556,000) by UK Aid funding to drive the development of a pan-coronavirus vaccine immune to all variants, UNICOR-v

4️⃣ Novartis backs Epsilogen's bid to turn 'Cinderella antibody' into a new class of cancer drug. Epsilogen’s primary focus is an immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibody that targets the folate receptor alpha antigen.

5️⃣ Rondo Therapeutics closes a $67mn series A financing to advance next-generation Immuno-Oncology platform for solid tumors. Funds will support the development of a new class of immune-stimulatory bispecific antibody therapeutics designed to address solid tumors

📰 Interesting News

1️⃣ What is rewilding, and how can it save your skin? The aim with rewilding is to create a healthy diversity and protective microbiome to reduce the likelihood of such conditions, cutting out harmful chemicals and product use overall.

2️⃣Glucose monitoring is the weight loss biohack you never knew you needed. Nutri-Sense touts their continuous glucose monitoring product as more than just something to manage diabetes—it’s an overall health solution for everything from metabolic health to weight loss.

3️⃣ Can we stop COVID-19 from becoming next tuberculosis?COVID-19 has devastated the global fight against TB, eliminating 12 years of progress in just 12 months.

4️⃣ Unravelling the mysteries around type-2 diabetes. A team of scientists at the University of Leeds has, for the first time, been able to identify the step-by-step changes that take place in the molecule known as human islet amyloid polypeptide, or hIAPP, as it changes into amyloid.

5️⃣ Dealing with associated trademarks in pharma brand acquisitions in India. It is common for pharmaceutical companies to name different drugs with similar prefixes/suffixes to create a strong recall value for the brand. At times, the common part of the product name is derived from the trade name of the company.