HONG KONG – The South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) is seeking a manager for its new ₩100 billion (US$81.63 million) private equity fund, which aims to help domestic biotech and medical device companies expand into overseas markets.

Baltimore-based Lifesprout Inc., a Johns Hopkins University startup, said it has closed a $28.5 million series A financing. It is planning to use the proceeds to support clinical development of therapeutic products from its Regenerative Matrix platform.

DUBLIN – Compass Pathways Ltd. raised $80 million in a series B round to continue its development of the psychedelic drug psilocybin in treatment-resistant depression.

BEIJING – Pre-revenue Chinese biotech Akeso Inc., of Zhongshan, Guangdong province, launched a high-profile IPO on April 24 in Hong Kong to reap HK$2.4 billion (US$314 million), even though the economy is taking a hard hit from the COVID-19 pandemic.

With completion of a $120 million series B financing, Affinivax Inc. said it's poised to advance several new vaccine candidates for hospital-associated infections into the clinic even as its partner, Astellas Pharma Inc., carries its lead pneumococcal vaccine candidate, ASP-3772, through an upcoming phase III program.

Privately held Swanbio Therapeutics Inc., of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., completed a $52 million expanded series A financing designed to boost the company’s R&D of adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based gene therapies to treat adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN) and other rare, monogenic neurological diseases.