Deals and Financings

• In a very successful debut offering, Nanjing Legend Biotech priced its US IPO above the expected range at $23 per ADS, raising $424 million. The company's ADS's climbed 60% higher to $36.60 in early trading, giving Legend a market capitalization of nearly $5 billion. Janssen formed a 50-50 partnership with the company for their CAR-T candidate in a $1 billion-plus deal, including $350 million upfront.
• Everest Medicines, a Shanghai biopharma, announced a very large $310 million Series C round to support clinical trials of its in-licensed candidates. Everest was formed in 2015 with $50 million in initial backing led by China's C-Bridge Capital. 
• Genor Biopharma, a Shanghai company with ten biologic candidates in clinical trials, completed a $160 million Series B financing led by Beijing's Hillhouse Capital Group.In late 2019, Genor was rumored to be planning a $200 million IPO on the Hong Kong Exchange, but that offering has not been officially announced.
• Jiangsu Atom Bioscience raised $30 million in a Series B financing that will be used for discovery and development of novel drugs that treat metabolic diseases and cancer. The financing was led by Livzon Pharma and Sequoia Capital China with participation from Kaitai Capital and Fortune Capital. 
• Deep Informatics++ of Hangzhou, a company that offers AI-based pathology products, completed a Series B financing of over $14 million. Founded in January 2017, Deep Informatics++ uses proprietary AI algorithms to develop multi-module diagnostic tools. Its products include: D-CleverEye (adds AI analysis to a microscope), D-PathAI (AI-assisted pathology diagnosis), and DPathAIS (an AI-based workstation).
• Beijing Jiushi Shenkang Medical Technology raised nearly $14 million in an A round to develop its portfolio of neuro-interventional medical devices. The company is developing cardio-cerebrovascular interventional medical devices for ischemia and hemorrhagic stroke. The A round was led by Apricot Capital.
• Jacobio Pharma of Beijing out-licensed rights for its two-molecule SHP2 program to AbbVie (ABBV). Although AbbVie will own exclusive rights to the SHP2 portfolio, Jacobio will conduct early global clinical trials of the molecules, with AbbVie paying R&D expenses. AbbVie will be responsible for global R&D though Jacobio has an option to develop the SHP2 program in greater China.

COVID-19 Pandemic

• Harbour BioMed, together with its Dutch partners, has struck a deal with AbbVie to develop a novel COVID-19 therapeutic antibody. AbbVie will support their early preclinical development of 47D11, a fully human, neutralizing antibody, while it plans for later preclinical testing and clinical trials. In return, AbbVie has an option to in-license the mAb.
• Gilead Sciences (GILD) announced positive results from a Phase III trial of remdesivir in patients with moderate COVID-19 disease, though the candidate provided only modest improvement. In patients treated with remdesivir for five days, more than half (65%) showed better clinical improvement at Day 11, compared to the standard of care. In the ten day treatment group, remdesivir's benefit did not reach statistical significance. Remdesivir is being administered in the US to treat severe COVID-19 disease under Emergency Use Authorization.

Trials and Approvals

• BeiGene (BGNE), a Beijing cancer biotech, announced China's NMPA approved its BTK inhibitor, Brukinsa™ (zanubrutinib), for two cancer indications: chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) /small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), and mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). All indications are for second-line treatment in adult patients. Brukinsa is the second BeiGene candidate to be commercialized. The company's anti-PD-1 antibody tislelizumab was approved in China, also in late 2019, as a third-line treatment for classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL).
• At the virtual ASCO conference, Suzhou Innovent announced clinical results from three trials of its PD-1 drug, Tyvyt: In a Phase II trial among patients with relapsed or refractory classic Hodgkin's lymphoma, the ORR was 85.4% and complete response (CR) was 42.7%. In 2018, Tyvyt was approved for use in China as a third-line treatment for patients with classical Hodgkin's lymphoma. It is currently being tested in 20 clinical trials.
• Harbour Biomed announced that China's NMPA approved its IND application to conduct a Phase II/III trial of HBM9161 in patients with Graves’ ophthalmopathy, an autoimmune disorder. The IND approval is the fourth for HBM9161 in China and the second to allow HBM to proceed directly to Phase III under an accelerated pathway.