Deals
Addex Therapeutics spinout Neurosterix will use the series B funds to advance an oral drug targeting M4, a muscarinic receptor also targeted by BMS’ Cobenfy, which introduced a new mechanism for treating schizophrenia with its 2024 approval.
FEATURED STORIES
Strong immunology and neuroscience sales fueled AbbVie’s latest quarterly beat as the pharma’s stock continues to hit all-time highs.
The largest pharmas have a collective $188 billion in firepower to spend on M&A transactions, with all but one signaling a desire to execute, according to a new analysis from Leerink Partners.
China may be taking the majority of licensing deals this year but those transactions don’t tell the whole story, according to Locust Walk, which points to the spike in M&A among U.S. biotechs as leveling the playing field.
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AbbVie’s $100 million upfront cash payment will purchase global rights to Nxera’s deprioritized oral small molecule, which has already completed Phase 1 testing.
The Swiss contract development and manufacturing organization will more than double its U.S. footprint by acquiring the Merck KGaA plants.
Novartis is discontinuing a neurodegeneration alliance with BioArctic in which the companies aimed to develop a drug candidate that could cross the blood-brain barrier.
Sail Biomedicine’s $925 million deal with Johnson & Johnson helped boost the cell and gene therapy sector over biologics in terms of venture capital fundraising in the third quarter.
After Sanofi paid $600 million in cash to acquire Dren Bio’s bispecific last year, the biotech has secured a hefty financing to fund late-stage development and commercial preparations for its lead asset.
Astellas Pharma could secure the exclusive global rights to Audax Biosciences’ DAX-044, an antibody-cytokine fusion therapy that activates the immune system in the vicinity of the tumor.
Merck stole the show at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) annual conference, with new data on its Moderna-partnered personalized cancer vaccine leaking prior to the presentation and antibody-drug conjugate sac-TMT making a splash in endometrial cancer; Bristol Myers Squibb revealed the death of a patient with multiple sclerosis in an early-stage trial of zola-cel; and pharma is on track to easily surpass last year’s deal count.
Since 2025, U.S. biopharma companies have raised $37.2 billion—68% of total worldwide venture capital funding in the industry—with startups in the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston leading the way.
While biopharma financing exit activity has remained strong through the third quarter, public-market performance for the same period was muted, with most of the yearly gains for the U.S. biotech-specific index largely driven by the first half of 2026.
Gilead Sciences has picked up a new inflammatory disease program from China’s PepStar Therapeutics to pair with the Phase 2 inflammatory bowel disease asset emvistegrast.