In July, biopharma deal values surged to $20.68 billion, a 61% increase from June's $12.82 billion. The boost pushed the total deal value for the first seven months of 2024 to $119.99 billion, marking the highest amount raised through July in BioWorld‘s records.
Novartis AG CEO Vas Narasimhan during the company’s July 18 second-quarter earnings call said his firm was “still in the midst of completing” the buyout disclosed in February of Morphosys AG, of Munich, for €2.7 billion (then US$2.9 billion), which brought worldwide rights to pelabresib, the small-molecule BET inhibitor for myelofibrosis.
Neuren Pharmaceuticals Ltd.’s NNZ-2591 met the primary endpoints in a phase II trial in children with Angelman syndrome, with improvements seen in clinically important aspects of the disease, including communication, behavior, cognition and motor abilities, Neuren CEO Jon Pilcher said during an Aug. 9 conference call.
In July, med-tech deal values surged to $200.88 million, up 116% from June's $93.07 million and ranking as the second-highest monthly total for 2024, behind only February’s $255.61 million.
Stocks tumbled on Aug. 5, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 1,000 points amid a disappointing jobs report released by the U.S. Labor Department on Aug. 2. The BioWorld Stock Index, which tracks approximately 510 U.S. biopharma stocks, was up 17.27% for the year on July 26 before closing Aug. 5 up only 3.47%, representing a significant drop.
China will deepen its health care reforms and will focus on enhancing its public health care capacity at the primary care level and at public hospitals, according to resolutions passed at the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in July.
The med-tech industry has seen a significant boost in fundraising, amassing $16.13 billion in the first seven months of this year, a nearly 38% increase from the $11.73 billion raised during the same period last year.
In the wake of Sage Therapeutics Inc.’s recent phase II fizzle with SAGE-324 in essential tremor, Wall Street is waiting for better news in the indication, which has racked up failures across several developers. Among those finding favor lately is Praxis Precision Medicines Inc. with Nav-targeting ulixacaltamide, also known as PRAX-628, which Oppenheimer analyst Francois Brisebois said “warrants particular attention.”