The head of the German group's pharma BD team tells Scrip that Bayer has created a system which allows it to move quickly when sealing partnerships, as seen with the KaNDy buy on 11 August.

Deals involving Hoth/Voltron, Vir/Xencor, Akers/Premas, WPD/CNS address coronavirus outbreak. Separately, Roche and Forge hope to develop a novel antibiotic for Gram-negative infections using the LpxC enzyme.

Bayer and Curadev entered a research collaboration and license agreement to develop novel STING antagonists targeting inflammatory disease.

While deal-making in the Asian pharma space shows no signs of slowing down, the past few months have been marked by a series of high-profile cases involving the return of rights by licensees or setbacks in clinical trials. Scrip's regional team looks at some of the factors at work.