Recent Articles in Deals & Financings

AnHeart Therapeutics, a New York-Hangzhou biopharma, will become part of Nuvation Bio (NYSE: NUVB) of New York in an all-stock deal. Shareholders of AnHeart will own 33% of Nuvation after the close, implying a value of $253 million at Nuvation’s current valuation. Nuvation has $600 million in cash, which may be part of AnHeart’s interest in the company. AnHeart’s lead candidate is a selective next-gen ROS1/NTRK inhibitor, taletrectinib, that is being tested in NSCLC patients. AnHeart has sold China rights for the drug to Innovent and Japan and Korea rights to other companies. More details....

Share this with colleagues:  

Shanghai WuXi Biologics has broken ground on a $1.4 billion facility in Singapore, the first CRDMO to offer end-to-end biologics research, development and manufacturing in the city-state. Last year, the company said its new bioprocessing platform, WuXiUI™, offers a 3 to 6-fold increase in productivity and a 60-80% savings in cost of goods sold compared to other fed-batch processes in single-use bioreactors. The Singapore facility, which will add 120,000L of manufacturing capacity to the company’s global network, is expected to employ 1,500 staff when it reaches full capacity. More details....

Stock Symbol: (HK: 2269)

Share this with colleagues:  

Germany’s Merck together with MilliporeSigma, its US-Canada life science division, announced plans to invest $326 million in a new Bioprocessing Production Center in Daejeon, South Korea. The company said the new facility will be its largest investment in Asia-Pacific life science infrastructure so far. The new facility will offer a full range of services for biologic drugs, including process development, clinical research and commercial manufacturing, for in-demand biologic products. Merck, which expects to hire about 300 employees to staff the facility, said the new facility reflects Asia-Pacific’s growing importance in biologic drugs. More details....

Share this with colleagues:  

Novo Nordisk, the Danish biopharma centered on diabetes therapies, announced plans to invest $556 million to expand its Tianjin city production facility, presumably to manufacture its blockbuster weight loss drug, Wegovy. The GLP-1 receptor agonist was initially approved to treat type2 diabetes in 2017, but its sales increased greatly since being approved as a weight loss therapy. In late 2023, Novo announced plans for a $6 billion plant in Denmark, and one month ago, it paid $16.5 billion to acquire a large drug manufacturing company Catalent. More details....

Share this with colleagues:  

Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim optioned rights to a schizophrenia therapy that treats all symptoms of the disease from Sosei Heptares of Japan in an agreement worth up to $822 million. Sosei Heptares is currently conducting a Phase I trial of a first-in-class GPR52 agonist for the indication. BI will have an option to acquire the agonists after Sosei completes Phase Ib trials. Sosei expects the chosen candidate will be effective against all symptoms of the disease, which are separated into positive (psychosis, delusions and hallucinations), negative (withdrawal and apathy) and cognitive (attention, planning and memory deficits) conditions. More details....

Share this with colleagues: