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 Shuttle Pharmaceuticals engages UI Pharmaceuticals for formulation and clinical batch manufacture of ropidoxuridine for brain tumor clinical trials. UI Pharmaceuticals is a university-affiliated CDMO offering pharmaceutical product development, manufacturing (sterile and non-sterile products), and analytical services.

2️⃣ Sumitovant Biopharma acquires Myovant Sciences in a $1.7bn deal. The acquisition will allow Sumitovant to combine expertise, platforms, and resources to address unmet needs in women's health and prostate cancer.

3️⃣ Annji Pharmaceutical announced a licensing agreement with Avenue Therapeutics to develop and commercialize AJ201, a first-in-class clinical asset for the treatment of Kennedy's disease. Agreement for the development and commercialization of AJ201 in the U.S., Canada, European Union, Great Britain, and Israel for spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA), also known as Kennedy's Disease.

4️⃣ Cytovance Biologics and Phenotypeca collaborate to enhance Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain development for microbial biomanufacturing. The collaboration between Cytovance Biologics and Phenotypeca is expected to accelerate the development of high-performance yeast strains and to improve the efficiency of biologics production for biopharma clients by leveraging Cytovance Biologics’s extensive knowledge in microbial fermentation and Phenotypeca’s yeast strain development technology to produce high quality expressing cell lines.

5️⃣ IIT Kanpur licenses gene therapy to Reliance Lifesciences. The gene therapy technology from IIT Kanpur will be further developed as an indigenous product by Reliance Lifesciences.

⏫ Pipeline and Approvals

1️⃣ Oncology: Shorla Oncology announces U.S. FDA approval of Nelarabine Injection for the treatment of T-cell leukemia.

2️⃣ Critical care: Amphastar Pharmaceuticals receives U.S. FDA approval for Naloxone Hydrochloride nasal spray.

3️⃣ Gastroenterology: Marksans Pharma gets final U.S. FDA nod for the generic version of Famotidine tablets.

4️⃣ Neurology: Pfizer hopes to nose out the competition with approval for new migraine nasal spray Zavzpret.

5️⃣ Rare disorders: Acadia Pharmaceuticals announces U.S. FDA approval of DAYBUE (trofinetide) for the treatment of Rett Syndrome in adult and pediatric patients.

💰 Funding

1️⃣ Summit Therapeutics closes fully-subscribed $500mn rights offering. The funds will help in the commercialization and production of SMT112 (Ivonescimab), a novel, potential first-in-class bispecific antibody for oncology treatment.

2️⃣ Bicara Therapeutics announces oversubscribed $108mn Series B financing to advance clinical-stage pipeline of dual-action biologics to treat cancer. Financing will support future studies of lead program BCA101, currently in Phase 1/1b clinical development in head and neck cancer, and pipeline growth.

3️⃣ Third Rock, J&J spinout Rapport arrives with $100mn and ambition to transform precision neuroscience. Rapport’s platform harnesses genomics, protein science and brain imaging technologies to identify RAPs for use in precision neuromedicines.

4️⃣ OpenAI CEO invests $180mn in biotech startup to reverse aging. Retro biosciences mission is to add 10 years to the average human life span.

5️⃣ Flagship-backed startup brings in another $86.5mn for ring-shaped viruses. Funding to fine-tune a class of viruses for genetic medicines, identify a handful of target disease areas and double its headcount in the process.

📰 Interesting News

1️⃣ The biggest private biotech investments in February 2023. The companies Aera Therapeutics, Hemab, and Loam Bio bagged the biggest biotech investments in February 2023.

2️⃣ Turkiye's biotech firm develops a device to treat resistant hypertension. INVAMED Medical Device Technologies has developed and produced the Delta Modulator RDN device which works in conjunction with the Modulator Renal Denervation catheter to deliver controlled radio frequency (RF) energy during renal denervation.

3️⃣ Silicon Valley Bank bet big on biotech. And now it’s gone. SVB was an active pillar in the biotech community a regulation-laden industry where companies often spend years and billions of dollars before ever seeing profitability. Per its Q4 2022 earnings report, 12% of the bank’s $173 billion in deposits belong to the health care and biotech sector.

4️⃣ Innovative breathing aid developed. Research around a new breathing device developed by pulmonologists offers promise for improving their lives. The new device not only improves symptoms of breathlessness and quality of life for people with COPD, but it also offers benefits for people dealing with stress and anxiety and those practicing mindfulness, meditation, or yoga.

5️⃣ New ultrasound method could lead to easier disease diagnosis. A new ultrasound method that can measure the level of tension in human tissue a key indicator of disease has been developed.