Public Company Edition: Four health care special purpose acquisition vehicles went public and two others announced mergers, but only one biopharma firm priced an IPO during the week of 19-23 October. Replimune’s $250m offering led recent FOPOs.

Public Company Edition: Codiak, Kiromic, Aligos and Opthea have fallen below their initial public offering values, while Tarsus and Praxis are trading higher. Also, 5AM, MPM and Cormorant took biotech SPACs public and Evotec led recent non-IPO financings with a €250m private placement.

Initial public offerings by Norbert Bischofberger’s start-up as well as Spruce Biosciences and Shattuck Labs bring the US total to 65 in 2020. Also, the pipeline of health care SPACs is growing, Everest and Genor went public in Hong Kong, Idorsia leads recent follow-on offerings and Corbus cuts jobs.

As Sandoz tries to assist African Union member states by selling its pandemic response portfolio medicines for zero profit, mAbxience has partnered with AstraZeneca to produce a vaccine. And CDMO Hovione has struck a deal with Ligand to boost manufacturing of Captisol, a critical ingredient for Gilead’s remdesivir.