M&A edition: Mergers by Century/Clade, Eliem/Tenet, Kintara/TuHURA, Aditxt/Appili, Onconova/Traws and Apotex/Searchlight follow other companies joining forces in a tight cash environment.

J&J’s Medtech division outshone pharma while recently launched innovative products contributed minimally: it is to be hoped investors’ reactions to the first set of big pharma Q1 results will not set the tempo for earnings season.

Private Company Edition: Regeneron launched a $500m venture fund and Canaan added $100m, bringing the venture firm’s recent total to $1bn-plus. Also, incubators plan to grow over the next decade and in recent financings Avenzo raised $150m and Nvelop launched with $100m.

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.

UK-based Ochre Bio has signed its first major deal with Boehringer Ingelheim. Scrip talked to its co-founder and CEO, Jack O’Meara, about its human tissue-based drug discovery platform, its resulting RNA platform for liver disease and how the fledgling drug company's early work mirrored that seen in diagnostics.

Ichnos Glenmark Innovation’s president and CEO talks to Scrip about the promising activity profile of the alliance’s early stage trispecific antibody versus Janssen’s teclistamab and also maintains that the setback for Gilead’s magrolimab hasn’t eclipsed prospects for its bispecific antibody.

The French drugmaker has not abandoned oncology but has made it very clear that immunology and inflammation is the priority for its R&D euros.

The French drugmaker has identified education as a key challenge ahead of its June action date for the huge-selling IL4/IL-13 inhibitor in the lung condition. An approval would make it the first biologic for the disease.

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.

A year is a long time in biopharma. Pharmaprojects’ annual pipeline review finds changes in the therapeutic spread of drug candidates and a reordering of the top R&D companies, as Chinese firms made their presence felt all the more over the past 12 months.

A look at the depth of clinical responses seen with various MASH therapies suggests that Madrigal could eventually face serious competition.

The company is targeting around 200 centers that treat the vast majority of the few thousand pediatric low-grade glioma patients who are candidates for the RAF-targeting drug.

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 Swiss major brings a new ruthlessness to the compounds in its pipeline: if they’re not first or best, they’re out.

UK-based Ochre Bio has signed its first major deal with Boehringer Ingelheim. Scrip talked to its co-founder and CEO, Jack O’Meara, about its human tissue-based drug discovery platform, its resulting RNA platform for liver disease and how the fledgling drug company's early work mirrored that seen in diagnostics.

Ichnos Glenmark Innovation’s president and CEO talks to Scrip about the promising activity profile of the alliance’s early stage trispecific antibody versus Janssen’s teclistamab and also maintains that the setback for Gilead’s magrolimab hasn’t eclipsed prospects for its bispecific antibody.

Joincare Pharmaceutical and partner TaiGen Biotechnology tout preliminary Phase III results in uncomplicated acute influenza for TG-1000, a homegrown follower of Shionogi/Roche’s oral antiviral Xofluza. Novel antivirals for flu were hotly pursued by Chinese developers throughout 2023.

Scrip's APAC team selects notable quotes from recent interviews, conferences and other coverage to highlight the views of senior executives and officials on the major topics facing the biopharma sector in the region.

Incyte will pay $750m to acquire privately held Escient and its first-in-class oral antagonists of Mas-related G protein-coupled receptors X2 and X4.

Sanofi’s BTK inhibitor – one of two from its 2021 Principia buy – passed a Phase III test in immune thrombocytopenia as the company focuses on Dupixent-like blockbusters going forward.

Execs Richard Adcock and Patrick Soon-Shiong told Scrip the company sees an addressable US population of about 20,000 and is aiming for ease of physician adoption.

Major Japanese companies Takeda, Astellas and SMBC are joining hands to establish a new joint venture with $3.9m capital and based in Japan’s largest biocluster Shonan iPark to help incubate local biopharma start-ups.

Deal Snapshot: Ipsen committed up to $1.8bn in upfront and milestone fees to develop novel treatments for rare neurological diseases with Skyhawk’s RNA-targeting small molecule platform.