Simcere Pharmaceutical Group has out-licensed its autoimmune drug candidate SIM-0278 for all indications to Almirall SA in a deal worth up to $507 million. Simcere granted exclusive global rights to the candidate to Almirall for development and commercialization excluding mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. In return, Almirall will pay Simcere $15 million up front.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2022 was awarded to Svante Pääbo today "for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution." Pääbo, who is currently the director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and his colleagues overcame extreme technical challenges to sequence the DNA of ancient hominids – because after tens of thousands of years, there is no such thing as aging well for DNA.

Innocare Pharma Ltd. raised ¥2.92 billion (US$412 million) in a second listing on the Shanghai STAR Market. Its shares opened at ¥10.86 apiece, sliding 15.4% to close at ¥9.33 on the first trading day, Sept. 21. The company will use the proceeds to support cancer and autoimmune drug R&D, improve its drug development platform, build its sales network, and upgrade its information technology, said Chief Commercial Officer Jin Xiaodong.

Meta Pharmaceuticals Inc. has raised $15 million in seed and pre-series A rounds in six months for the pipeline and AI platform development. Shenzhen, China-based Meta Pharma plans to use the new funds to support its three candidates to enter clinical trials, as well as the development of its Meta-map platform for pipeline expansion.

PERTH, Australia – Prota Therapeutics Ltd.’s lead candidate PRT-120 induced clinical remission of peanut allergy in 51% of children in a phase IIb clinical trial. There are currently no curative therapies to treat food allergies, Prota Therapeutics CEO Mimi Tang told BioWorld. Peanut allergy in children can be particularly problematic because the only treatment is avoidance.

Huadong Medicine Co. Ltd.’s wholly owned subsidiary Hangzhou Zhongmei Huadong Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. has acquired Asia-Pacific rights to two drugs from Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals Ltd. in a deal worth up to $662 million. “This collaboration aims to bring Kiniksa’s therapeutics to patients in the Asia Pacific Region suffering from severe autoimmune and inflammatory diseases,” said Sanj Patel, chairman and CEO of Kiniksa. “The collaboration also provides nondilutive capital, cost-sharing, and resources for clinical trials to accelerate our drug development and commercialization efforts.”

PERTH, Australia – After raising AU$7.5 million (US$5.4 million) in a private placement, biopharma company Servatus Ltd. is advancing its microbial biotherapeutics clinical programs targeting serious autoimmune conditions. The Coolum, Queensland-based private company is focused on identifying and developing live microbial biotherapeutics and engineered proteins to treat chronic and autoimmune diseases, as well as non-antibiotic treatments for bacterial infections.

Beigene Ltd. has received approval from China’s NMPA to market Sylvant (siltuximab) for the treatment of patients with multicentric Castleman disease, including HIV-negative and human herpes virus-8-negative disease. The green light comes at a good time as the Beijing-headquartered company is preparing for a $3.5 billion listing on Shanghai’s STAR Market, its third listing. The monoclonal antibody siltuximab previously received regulatory approval in the U.S. and Europe.