Goby Asia Healthcare Weekly 7/16

Highlights of the Week

Korea's stock market shined and grabbed the top two gainers for the week.?JW Pharma (KSE: 001060) was the best weekly gainer?this past week in the Asia-Pacific region, rising 42%. JW Pharma sells medicines and medical supplies in Japan and internationally. The company was founded in 1945 and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.?Celltrion (KOSDAQ: 068760)?was the second-best performer this past week, rising 27.5%. The company cites media reports about merger between its affiliates and confirms review of merger between operating companies.?China's?Succeeder Technology?was the worst weekly performer of this past week, declining 18%. Goby News was unable to find any company-specific news for the outperformance of JW and the underperformance of Succeeder Technology. Please see the table above for other market movers of the week. Goby News monitors about 900 public healthcare companies in the Asia-Pacific region with market caps greater than US$250 million.

Pyrotech?announced that it has recently completed a Round A financing of RMB 700 million. The financing was led by SDIC Venture Capital and China Venture Capital Fund. Since its establishment in October 2020, the company has raised more than 1 billion RMB in total. Read more?here.

Novartis?terminated its option agreement with?BeiGene?to develop?BeiGene's investigational TIGIT inhibitor ociperlimab. Read more?here.

Wall Street banks, such as Citigroup, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, and UBS, are helping to bring international investors for?Syngenta Group's RMB 65 billion ($9 billion) IPO in Shanghai, potentially the biggest IPO this year. Read more?here.

Kelun Biotech?raised HK$1.26 billion in its Hong Kong IPO. Some sources claim it is priced (at HK$60.60) at the bottom of the range. The stock closed the week up 8.9% from its IPO price. Read more?here.

SGX-listed?healthcare group?Thomson Medical Group?has agreed to acquire Vietnam's FV Hospital for up to $381.4 million. This is Vietnam's biggest healthcare transaction to date as well as Southeast Asia's largest healthcare acquisition since 2020. Read more?here.

Zai Lab's CFO Billy Cho left the firm and joined?CBC Group?as Senior Managing Director, Private Equity and Co-Head, Joint Value Creation. Read more?here.

BeiGene and?Duality Biologics?(private, Shanghai) announced an agreement for BeiGene to acquire an exclusive option for a global clinical and commercial license to a preclinical ADC therapy from Duality. Duality will receive an undisclosed amount of upfront payment, potential additional milestone payments up to $1.3 billion, and tiered royalties. Read more?here.

Astellas Pharma (TSE: 4503)?and?4D Molecular Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FDMT)?entered a license agreement under which Astellas gains rights to utilize 4DMT's?intravitreal retinotropic R100* vector for one genetic target implicated in rare monogenic ophthalmic diseases with additional options available. 4DMT will receive an upfront payment of $20 million and potential milestones up to $942.5 million. Read more?here.

Astellas Pharma (TSE: 4503)?completed its acquisition of?IVERIC Bio (NASDAQ: ISEE)?on July 11, 2023. The acquisition was initially announced at the end of April 2023.?Read more?here.

Zhongchao Inc.?and?Shanghai Ximalaya Technology?are partnering to launch the first audio course series for cancer education, named "Let's Talk About Tumors". Read more?here.

The 6th?SAPA Healthcare Investment Forum and Roadshow?was held successfully in New York City on July 8th with featured speakers David Ke, Managing Director, JPMorgan; Jeff Bockman, Expert Advisor, Lumanity; and Peter Luo, CEO, Adagene. An in-person roadshow competition was also held successfully with HanchorBio, Notitia Biotech, and Panorama Medicine winning the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, respectively. Read more?here?and?here.

Greater China News

Business Development

LianBio?and?AstraZeneca?entered a clinical supply agreement in China to evaluate BBP-398, an investigational SHP2 inhibitor, in combination with osimertinib, an EGFR inhibitor, in a Phase 1 clinical study for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer with EGFR mutations. Read more?here.

Zhejiang Doer Biologics?and?BioNTech SE?entered into a license agreement. Doer Bio will grant BioNTech a worldwide license to use one of Doer Bio's discoveries to develop therapies against an undisclosed target. Doer Bio will receive an undisclosed upfront payment and potential milestones. Read more?here.

InnoCare?and?ArriVent?announced a clinical development collaboration to conduct a joint clinical study of ICP-189 combined with furmonertinib to treat advanced non-small cell lung cancer. ICP-189 is an SHP2 allosteric inhibitor and furmonertinib is a highly brain-penetrating mutation-selective EGFR inhibitor. Read more?here.

Clinical and Regulatory

Broncus?completed the first case of registered clinical trials of its targeted lung denervation radiofrequency ablation system. Read more?here.

Shineco?announced its subsidiary?Changzhou Biowin Pharmaceutical?received marketing and distribution approval for its Cardiac 5-Minute Test to aid in the clinical diagnosis of acute myocardial infection from the Jiangsu Bureau of China's NMPA. Read more?here.

Junshi Biosciences?announced the Chinese NMPA accepted its supplemental new drug application for toripalimab in combination with axitinib for the first-line treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic renal cell carcinoma. Read more?here.

BeiGene?announced the U.S. FDA has accepted for review its supplemental NDA for BRUKINSA?in combination with obinutuzumab?for the treatment of relapsed or refractory (R/R) follicular lymphoma after at least two prior lines of therapy. Read more?here.

Publications

Sciwind Biosciences?(private, Hangzhou, China)?published Phase 1 clinical trial results of its GLP-1 analog ecnoglutide (XW003) in?Molecular Metabolism.?Read more?here.

People

HUTCHMED?announced changes to its Board of Directors, including the resignation of Mr. Lefei Sun as Non-Executive Director and member of the Technical Committee and the appointment of Ms. Ling Yang as Non-Executive Director. Read more?here.

Financial Results

Harbour BioMed?announced it anticipates to record a significant increase in its revenue for the six months ended June 30, 2023. Read more?here.

Presentations

Connect Biopharma?presented four posters at the 25th?World Congress of Dermatology that was held in Singapore from July 3-8, 2023.?Read more?here.

Sirnaomics?will present latest developments on two of its delivery platforms at upcoming conferences this July and August. Read more?here.

Other

Clover Biopharmaceuticals?provided?updates on business and R&D pipeline development. Read them?here.

The?Hong Kong International Biotechnology Convention?issued a call for abstracts with a submission deadline of August 13, 2023. Learn more?here.

Greater Asia News

Japan

Astellas Pharma?announced that the European Medicines Agency has accepted for regulatory review its marketing authorization application for zolbetuximab, a first-in-class CLDN18.2-targeted monoclonal antibody for first-line treatment of HER2-negative gastric cancer with CLDN18.2-positive tumors. Read more?here.

JEOL?released new scanning electron microscopes JSM-IT710HR/JSM-IT210 with improved features. Read more?here.

Eisai?will present its latest Alzheimer's research findings at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in the Netherlands and virtually from July 16-20, 2023. Read more?here.

Sosei Group Corporation?will announce its earnings results and present operational highlights for the 6 months ended 30 June 2023 on Friday, 4 August 2023. Read more?here.

South Korea

Novotech?will present a technical session at BIOPLUS-INTERPHEX KOREA 2023 for biotech companies planning regional or global trials. Read more?here.

Bridge Biotherapeutics?joined PROLIFIC, the Prognostic Lung Fibrosis Consortium, an organization devoted to boosting scientific exploration and drug development in pulmonary fibrosis. Read more?here.

Samsung Bioepis?released a second edition of its Biosimilar Market Report analyzing market trends for commercially available biosimilars in the United States. Read more?here.

India

Dr. Reddy?announced that the Biologics License Application for its rituximab biosimilar, DRL_RI, was accepted for review by the U.S. FDA. DRL_RI is a cytolytic antibody for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and other indications. Read more?here.

Singapore

Novotech?was announced as a finalist in the Asia Pacific Cell & Gene Therapy Awards 2023. The winner will be announced on September 13, 2023. Read more?here.

Conferences

Click?here?to view our calendar of Upcoming Conferences.

Including:

July 16-20, 2023:?Alzheimer's Association International Conference?(Amsterdam, Netherlands)

July 17-18, 2023:?TD Cowen Rounds @ Cleveland Clinic?(Cleveland, Ohio)

July 23-26, 2023: International AIDS Society Conference (Brisbane, Australia)

July 23-27, 2023: American Association for Clinical Chemistry (Anaheim, California)

July 25, 2023: H.C. Wainwright 2nd Annual Kidney Conference (Virtual)

Sept 13-16, 2023: The International Biotech Convention (Hong Kong), linked?here

Sept 14-15, 2023: Second Annual ADC China Forum 2023 (Suzhou, China), linked?here

Oct 20-24, 2023: China Conference on Rare Diseases (Beijing, China), linked?here