Incyte will pay $750m to acquire privately held Escient and its first-in-class oral antagonists of Mas-related G protein-coupled receptors X2 and X4.

Deal Snapshot: Ipsen committed up to $1.8bn in upfront and milestone fees to develop novel treatments for rare neurological diseases with Skyhawk’s RNA-targeting small molecule platform.

Notable new drug approvals in South Korea last year included Pfizer’s Tukysa, Genentech’s Columvi and BeiGene’s Tevimbra, but the tally did not include any domestically-originated products. Alzheimer’s disease therapy lecanemab may be on the horizon this year.

The US FDA’s approval of Lumicell’s optical imaging agent Lumisight makes a dozen novel approvals in 2024 for the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.