Deals
TRexBio and Retension Pharmaceuticals are set to debut Friday, bringing this year’s biotech IPO count to 29 as the sector’s rebound continues. City Therapeutics and Iambic Therapeutics hope to push that number even higher.
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After a frantic second quarter, M&A steadied with just under $30 billion across 22 total transactions, according to a BioSpace analysis.
Last year, 11 major M&A deals were signed with women-led biotechs. The industry is nowhere near on track to meet that bar for 2026.
Big Pharma needs more—not fewer—bold bets on rare and difficult diseases after Novartis’ efforts to invest in muscular dystrophy and ALS hit major roadblocks this month.
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Eli Lilly first linked up with Gate Bioscience in July 2025 to leverage the biotech’s “Molecular Gate” engine to treat diseases with high unmet need. Monday’s expansion will add one undisclosed target to the existing agreement, with an option for a second.
After a series of clinical-stage failures, Alector is resetting around its preclinical blood-brain barrier delivery technology, securing a big pharma partnership along the way.
CSL will co-develop and co-promote Alentis Therapeutics’ anti-claudin-1 therapy lixudebart for kidney and liver conditions, including primary sclerosing cholangitis and a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by small blood vessel inflammation.
Novartis is licensing an mRNA-based therapy designed to produce a CD3xCD19 T cell engager inside the body. Abogen Biosciences says the in vivo approach could reduce the likelihood of dangerous cytokine release.
Sanofi and Regeneron have had a long and “sometimes contentious” partnership, BMO Capital Markets noted, as the companies contend with the looming loss of exclusivity of their blockbuster drug Dupixent.
Time has run out on BioNTech’s bid to locate buyers for sites in Idar-Oberstein, Marburg and Tübingen. Including staff at a Singapore plant also slated for closure, the move could impact 1,860 jobs.
The all-stock deal gives Summit Therapeutics enough money to see through Phase 3 trials for the PD-1/VEGF bispecific ivonescimab—but keeps the asset fully in-house without giving up licensing rights.
Investors looking for more transformative business development at Novo will have to wait, but a new partnership with China’s Hengrui Pharma adds a new weekly oral option to the Danish pharma’s early pipeline.
Merck continues to diversify its cancer efforts as the clock ticks down on Keytruda’s patent, picking up rights to a preclinical oncology asset in a deal that could exceed $2 billion.
Two RNA biotechs, ADARx Pharmaceuticals and City Therapeutics, are taking advantage of the IPO frenzy, which has led to a total of 27 newly public biotechs so far this year.