Indoor dining at restaurants and bars is shutting down again as the COVID-19 pandemic worsens in the US as numbers of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus reach new daily highs, and most companies remain in work-from-home mode or are running at reduced capacity while the country awaits a significant improvement in the virus’ spread. The economic impact has been devastating across most sectors of the global economy, but the biopharmaceutical sector remains an outlier with drug makers’ stock prices rising, opening up big fundraising opportunities.
Finance Watch: Up, Up And Away – Biopharma Stocks Keep Rising
Public Company Edition: Drug developers continue to take advantage of investors’ preference for biotechnology investments, with CRISPR, Acceleron and BioNTech raising massive sums. The wealth isn’t spreading to everyone, however, as DBV Technologies is restructuring and cutting jobs.
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CEO Kris Elverum told Scrip about the start-up’s platform for editing RNA to correct genetic variants that cause harm and to reproduce healthy variants as a means of treating disease.
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The four-year-old firm said it plans to advance programs toward the clinic from the funding round, which comes just over a year after signing two major pharma partnerships.
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Private Company Edition: The latest group of drug developers to announce venture capital financings is remarkable for its geographic diversity, from Character Biosciences’ $93m series B round in the US to Augustine’s $85m series B in Belgium to a $29.2m series C for Aculys in Japan.
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Kyoto-based venture moves HQ to California to expand R&D and business outreach for its regulatory T-cell technology, as it raises around $46m in public and private funding.
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After failing a Phase II monotherapy study in early Parkinson’s, Cerevance will focus on adjunctive therapy without abandoning the monotherapy concept.
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The firm has lofty ambitions for the aldosterone synthase inhibitor to treat hypertension and kidney disease.
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Supply chain disruption fears at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic caused drug over-ordering. Imminent tariffs on drugs may have had a similar effect on pharma sales in Q1 earnings season.