Public Company Edition: Verona Pharma arranged up to $400m in new debt and up to $250m in revenue-related financing ahead of its COPD drug launch. Also, Organon, Sobi and Pacira priced $1bn, $275.1m and $250m note sales, respectively. Marinus, Emergent and Ginkgo cut jobs.

Pipeline Watch is a weekly snapshot of selected late-stage clinical trial events and approvals announced by pharmaceutical and biotech companies at medical and industry conferences, in financial and company presentations, and in company releases and statements.

Private Company Edition: Attovia will advance two anti-IL-31 programs with its $105m in series B funding, while ImmuNext secured $575m in a Royalty Pharma deal for its Sanofi-partnered drug. Also, Bluejay and Aardvark raised $182m and $85m, respectively, in series C rounds. 

Recent moves in the industry include new CEOs at Juno Pharmaceuticals and YS Biopharma, plus Glenmark gets a new chief communications officer.

Ajax Therapeutics plans to take its type II JAK2 inhibitor into the clinic during the second half of 2024 with the aim of modifying disease in a way that first-generation type I inhibitors do not. 

Combination mechanisms, less frequent dosing and scalability are the goals of the collaboration.

Aiming to help create China’s first original treatment for under-researched rare diseases, the Hope for Rare Foundation is racing against a funding crunch to support translational research in China, its co-founder and secretary-general tells Scrip in an interview.

Zenas BioPharma plans to have data from four trials – two under way and two starting this summer – for obexelimab, which targets CD19 and FcγRIIb, within about a year and a half.

The industry’s top-selling drugs generate billions in revenues each year. Scrip analyzed data on nearly 200 blockbuster drugs to see which are forecast to make the most at peak and over a 14-year time horizon.

Indian firms accounted for over 50% of prescription volumes in five of the top 10 therapy areas in the US in 2022, as also 15% of the volume share of biosimilars, delivering savings and widening patient coverage a study by IQVIA said, while also highlighting supply chain risks that need attention.

Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty toppled after recording the highest ever annual sales for a pharmaceutical in 2022, while Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic climbed rapidly. But Merck & Co’s immuno-oncology blockbuster Keytruda was secure in the number one spot in 2023 as COVID-19 receded.

The highs of the COVID-19 era, and the lows that supplanted it, are beginning to fade.

Ajax Therapeutics plans to take its type II JAK2 inhibitor into the clinic during the second half of 2024 with the aim of modifying disease in a way that first-generation type I inhibitors do not. 

The Japanese company will await imaging results to see if AC Immune’s candidate ACI-24.060 can help prevent or remove plaques before finalizing the deal.

Ebglyss sales, all from Germany, were €3.6m in the first quarter and while that may appear a little underwhelming at first glance, the Spanish drugmaker is impressed with the launch and its impact on dermatologists and patients.

In this week's podcast edition of Five Must-Know Things: AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria farewell; the next wave of cardiometabolics; Pfizer recruits prominent analyst: foundation pleas for China rare disease therapies; and Gossamer partners up for respiratory therapy.

The industry’s top-selling drugs generate billions in revenues each year. Scrip analyzed data on nearly 200 blockbuster drugs to see which are forecast to make the most at peak and over a 14-year time horizon.

Public Company Edition: Verona Pharma arranged up to $400m in new debt and up to $250m in revenue-related financing ahead of its COPD drug launch. Also, Organon, Sobi and Pacira priced $1bn, $275.1m and $250m note sales, respectively. Marinus, Emergent and Ginkgo cut jobs.

Months after an antitrust lawsuit challenged its deal with Sanofi and raised uncertainty about the future of MZE001, Maze secured a new partner for potentially the first oral Pompe disease drug.

But it rescues embattled Novavax.

A more than 70% stock slide shows that investors are concerned about three as-yet unexplained deaths in a Phase II study of the US firm’s lead candidate.

Pipeline Watch is a weekly snapshot of selected late-stage clinical trial events and approvals announced by pharmaceutical and biotech companies at medical and industry conferences, in financial and company presentations, and in company releases and statements.

Lupin’s CEO spoke of US drug shortages having led to recognition of the need for structural and regulatory support for viable pricing of generic drugs. She was also optimistic on the relaunch of a Myrbetriq generic after Astellas obtained a temporary restraining order against Lupin and Zydus just a few days post an at-risk launch by the latter two companies

Apparently months after his actual detention, news has finally surfaced that a key researcher behind China's rapid development of a homegrown COVID-19 vaccine is said to have "severely violated" Communist Party rules and regulations and is the subject of a probe for possible corruption.