Private Company Edition: While the tough state of financing for publicly traded drug developers continues, venture capital firms and private biopharma companies revealed billions of dollars in new VC funds and start-up financings, including $100m-plus mega-rounds for Tessa, Alladapt and ImCheck.

Among the six new investigational products to make it onto the European Medicines Agency’s priority medicines scheme, five were gene therapies.

Announcement of the 14 July Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee meeting follows a successful, two-day trial run of the virtual format by the oncology pediatric subcommittee that featured a mix of prerecorded and live sponsor presentations and strict adherence to a call/response approach to ensure orderly conduct.

ODAC's 17-18 June discussion of pediatric development plans for four investigational oncology agents will serve as a trial run of the technology platform and logistics for any future application-specific virtual advisory committee meeting, but without the stress associated with a pending application and a user fee deadline.