Evaluate Data

Private Company Edition: Despite a third quarter dip, venture capital investment in biopharma in 2024 is on track to beat 2023, new data confirm. VC mega-rounds of $100m or more helped boost the total, including recent financings totaling $175m for Alpha-9 and $112m for AvenCell.

While big pharma has significantly higher R&D and acquisition expenditures, certain biotechs have outperformed in terms of ROI and have substantial potential for future growth with their strong pipeline assets.

Two of 2030’s forecast blockbuster obesity drugs are facing binary readouts by the end of the year. Here’s what that could mean for their developers, Novo Nordisk and Amgen.

A mild benefit in the CV outcomes trial of Rybelsus means a likely label expansion in diabetes patients, but probably not vastly increased sales.

Sanofi and Orano Med have kicked off a joint venture worth $1.9bn to develop alpha-emitting cancer therapies, underscoring the importance of this space to big pharma.

Emerging Company Profile: The Maryland-based biotech is working on a functional cure for type 1 diabetes that is similar to Vertex’s VX-880 – but with some key differences.

Data from Evaluate show that biopharma venture capital investment fell from $7.95bn in Q2 to $6.59bn in Q3, but both outpaced every quarter in 2023 as the financial market recovery continues.

The biopharma industry posted 22 mergers and acquisitions during the third quarter, according to Evaluate, for a total of $8.2bn. Those tallies marked a second consecutive quarter of decline.

But biotechs are still having to price their offerings lower than they had planned.    

Indian CMOs, CDMOs and CRDMOs are expanding capacity and making leadership moves ahead of the BIOSECURE Act, anticipating demand from big pharma and budding biotechs. Scrip brings details on leading Indian firms which could be potential go-to suppliers for US companies affected by the proposed Act