Chinese biotechs have reached deals for cancer therapies to explore the novel uses of messenger RNA technology beyond COVID-19 vaccines, as the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine fame starts fading.

Private Company Edition: In addition to Adiso, Creyon recently launched with $40m and TRexBio extended its series A by $26m to $85m total. Also, Kurma Partners raised the first €160m of a planned €250m fund to back companies transitioning from R&D to commercial operations. 

Heading into the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference, pharmas have been focusing on discovery alliances. J&J’s deals look into novel tissue-targeted drugs, ionic liquid delivery technology and cancer vaccine R&D. Lilly teams with Entos on novel methods for delivering neurology drugs.

Updates at ASH for bispecifics targeting BCMA, GPRC5D and FcRH5 from Regeneron, Janssen, Pfizer, Roche, AbbVie and Harpoon show monotherapy efficacy, initial combination data and potential safety differentiation.