Novartis aims to double the addressable market for its spinal muscular atrophy gene therapy – and catch up to competitors – with the intrathecal version known as OAV-101.

Taking full control of partner Translate Bio means that Sanofi is the only big vaccine company with a wholly-owned mRNA platform in-house but observers say it is too early to declare that the Paris-headquartered group has bagged itself a bargain.

Public Company Edition: This year is just six initial public offerings away from matching 2020’s record-breaking total of 86 biopharma IPOs in the US. Also, Idorsia raised $662.5m through the sale of convertible bonds and Cytokinetics closed a $316.3m follow-on offering. 

Alere Medical and its now-defunct subsidiary Arriva Medical will pay the US government $160m to settle allegations that they violated the False Claims Act. It’s the second settlement that Alere has entered into with the Department of Justice in recent weeks.