Lim raised $42 million for his newest company Erasca Therapeutics, another cancer drug developer.
—Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GILD]]) inked an $80 million upfront deal with Scholar Rock (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SRRK]]) that gives it the option to license its partner’s fibrosis drugs.
—Relay Therapeutics raised $400 million in Series C financing as the company prepares to start clinical trials testing its “protein motion” drugs in cancer.
—Seattle biotech Kineta landed $15 million up front from Pfizer (NYSE: [[ticker:PFE]]) in a partnership focused on developing new cancer immunotherapies.
—Boston-area biotech Entrada Therapeutics emerged with $59 million in Series A financing to develop drugs that can ferry a biologic into the cellular membrane.
—In another deal, Gilead agreed to pay $150 million up front to gain access to up to five preclinical cancer immunotherapies developed by Agenus (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AGEN]]).
—Chinese biotech Shanghai Junshi Biosciences raised nearly $400 million in an IPO on the Hong Kong market, according to Reuters.
—Novo Nordisk, a top diabetes care company, has inked a deal that could eventually pay €430 million to Dutch firm Staten Biotechnology for rights to a cardiovascular drug, and potentially a full acquisition of Staten.
—Amgen (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMGN]]) is paying $50 million for rights to a preclinical cancer drug from Molecular Partners.
—China-based Innovent Biologics paid Incyte (NASDAQ: [[ticker:INCY]]) $40 million upfront for rights to develop three of the Wilmington, DE, company’s drugs for the Chinese market.
—Eli Lilly (NYSE: [[ticker:LLY]]) paid Aduro Biotech (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ADRO]]) $12 million upfront for Aduro compounds that target the STING pathway, which can modulate the immune response associated with autoimmune diseases.
—Annexon Biosciences closed a $75 million Series C financing to continue developing autoimmune and neurodegenerative disease drugs.
Ben Fidler and Frank Vinluan contributed to this report.
Photo “Christmas” by Mark Ramsay via a Creative Commons 2.0 license. Cheers, Mark, and happy holidays!
