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 Sanyou Biopharmaceuticals forged a strategic partnership with Dragon Sail Pharmaceutical to upgrade integrated innovative antibody-drug R&D. The two parties will share their experiences and technical advantages and provide integrated and modular solutions that cover biological drugs R&D, CDMO, and commercial productions to the global biopharmaceutical industry.

2️⃣ Henlius acquires two novel immunotherapy candidates in $196.5mn deal. Palleon develops glycol-immunology products for cancer and inflammatory diseases. Henlius will have the right to develop Palleon’s bifunctional HER2-Sialidase, currently in preclinical development, and a second bifunctional sialidase to be developed and aimed at a proprietary Henlius target.

3️⃣ GenFleet to receive royalty rights for conducting China trial of BioLineRx cancer drug. GenFleet Therapeutics will conduct a Phase IIb China clinical trial of BioLineRx’s Motixafortide as first-line therapy for patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and will be eligible for low-to-mid single-digit royalties on global sales of the drug.

4️⃣ Daewoong, YUWCM sign stem cell CDMO contract to treat hearing loss. The two institutions will collaborate to establish tonsil-derived mesenchymal stem cells’ Master Cell Bank (MCB) to produce specimens for phase 1 clinical trials.

5️⃣ Eczacibasi to acquire Turkish pharma company Gensenta for $135mn. With the takeover of Gensenta, Eczacibasi will move a step closer to becoming a key healthcare player in Turkey and global markets

⏫ Pipeline and Approvals

1️⃣ AbbVie’s orthopedic drug Rinvoq gains recommended approval by CHMP

2️⃣ Novartis Korea wins approval for chronic myeloid leukemia drug, Scemblix

3️⃣ Sanofi's Nexviadyme approved by EC for Pompe disease

4️⃣ Akeso approved to launch dual checkpoint inhibitor for cervical cancer

5️⃣ Altamira medica's nasal spray for allergic rhinitis gains 510(k) clearance

💰 Funding

1️⃣ Reistone completes $100mn a round for inflammatory disease drugs. Reistone’s lead product is a JKA1 inhibitor in a Phase III trial for atopic dermatitis and other immune disorders.

2️⃣ Advanced NanoTherapies closes $7.2mn series A for drug-coated balloon. Funds will be used to complete the first-in-human clinical study of SirPlux Duo which combines sirolimus and paclitaxel to create a next-generation front-line therapy designed to provide stent-like patency and restenosis prevention while leaving no implant behind.

3️⃣ Sling Therapeutics emerges with $35mn to tackle thyroid eye disease. The funds will support a phase 2b clinical trial evaluating its investigational drug, Linsitinib for thyroid eye disorder.

4️⃣ ReCode breaks the mold with $120mn financing, bringing a clutch of Big Pharmas along for the ride. The proceeds will push the biotech’s two lead mRNA programs toward human studies, ReCode’s lead programs target cystic fibrosis (CF) and primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD), a lung disease similar to CF.

5️⃣ Funding doubled for a company working on breakthrough auto-immune disease therapeutics. Ermium discovers and develops orally-available small molecules aimed at addressing a range of chronic auto-immune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), dermatomyositis, Sjögren syndrome, and monogenic interferonopathies.

📰 Interesting News

1️⃣ The biggest US biotech investments in May 2022. The DNA sequencing newcomer Ultima Genomics won the crown for the biggest U.S private biotech investment in May 2022.

2️⃣ Lattes and gummies: Food science inspires a new approach to treating gut and liver injury. Results, published in Science Translational Medicine showed that the three systems using foam, a hydrogel, and a solid can effectively deliver carbon monoxide in mice and the foam method was found to reduce tissue injury and inflammation in mouse models of chemically induced colitis, radiation-induced proctitis, and liver injury due to acetaminophen overdose, and also tested in pigs.

3️⃣ Dissolving implantable device relieves pain without drugs. Researchers have developed a small, soft, flexible implant that relieves pain on demand and without the use of drugs. The first-of-its-kind device works by softly wrapping around nerves to deliver precise, targeted cooling, which numbs nerves and blocks pain signals to the brain. After the device is no longer needed, it naturally absorbs into the body -- bypassing the need for surgical extraction.

4️⃣ Signaling molecule potently stimulates hair growth. Researchers have discovered that a signaling molecule called SCUBE3 potently stimulates hair growth and may offer therapeutic treatment for androgenetic alopecia.

5️⃣ The mere sight of a meal triggers an inflammatory response in the brain. Even before carbohydrates reach the bloodstream, the very sight and smell of a meal trigger the release of insulin. In overweight individuals, however, this inflammatory response is so excessive that it can impair insulin secretion.