Innovent Biologics reaps; Jeff Aronin’s lead; Alexion gives out; Stoke Therapeutics receives

Innovent Biologics reaps USD 421 Million by Hong Kong IPO

Innovent Biologics got delivered USD 421 million in its IPO. The Suzhou-based unicorn priced 236.35 million shares near the top of the range at HK USD 13.98. The USD 245 million is given by a group of 10 cornerstone investors, because of which Innovent’s total valuation is at around USD 2 billion. The list includes Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek, Sequoia Capital China, Shanghai-based Greenwoods Investment, Hong Kong-based asset management company Value Partners and American financial services company Capital Group.

The new lead of Jeff Aronin is labelled as a failure

The new lead of Jeff Aronin’s biotechs declared that they had raised USD 71.8 million to get their rare disease drug into pivotal trials. After that, the company clandestinely flagged the failure of treatment in Phase II. However, they are still heading to Phase III. The Phase II study of Castle Creek’s only drug was lately updated on the clinicaltrials.gov page and now says that the trial was ended after an independent data monitoring committee suggested that the study will not meet statistical objectives.

Alexion gives out USD 22 Million upfront for preclinical RNAi drugs

Alexion Pharmaceuticals is expanding its pipeline as it continues to get rid off a sales practices scandal that is related to its expensive rare disease drug Soliris. The Boston based company remunerates USD 22 million upfront to co-develop two preclinical RNAi therapies that are owned by Dicerna Pharmaceuticals. RNAi therapies deliver the potential to deal with key limitations of traditional approaches to treatment and have intrigued drug developers for long, however, it has frequently been met with clinical failure.

Stoke Therapeutics receives USD 90 Million in series B funding

The antisense startup Stoke Therapeutics has secured USD 90 million in series B financing. Stoke licensed its technology from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The so-called technology is the Targeted Augmentation of Nuclear Gene Output (TANGO). Adrian Krainer, the inventor of Biogen’s USD BIIB spinal muscular atrophy drug Spinraza. The USD 90 million in funding comes from RTW Investments with participation from founding investor Apple Tree Partners.