Hong Kong – South Korea’s Lunit Inc. is currently in the process of applying for U.S. FDA approval for Lunit Insight Mmg, its AI software that analyzes mammography images to detect breast cancer. Other markets that the company targets entering include South America, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific, Jussarang Lee, communications manager at Lunit, told BioWorld. Founded in 2013, the Seoul-based company uses artificial intelligence to develop cancer diagnostics and therapeutics.

In a big day of setting up IPOs for launch, the charge is being led by Royalty Pharma, a buyer of biopharmaceutical royalties and an industry funder, which is aiming at a $2 billion offering. That massive number is more than half of the total biotech offerings brought in through May.

Tel Aviv-based Alpha Tau Medical Ltd. raised $26 million in a series B financing. The round was led by previous investors, Savit Capital, Medison Ventures, and Ourcrowd, as well as new private and family office investors hailing from North America and Israel. The new funds will be used to continue trials of the company's Alpha DaRT (Diffusing Alpha Radiation Emitters Therapy) alpha-radiation cancer therapy for solid tumors and expand manufacturing facilities.

LONDON – Base Genomics Ltd. has raised $11 million in an oversubscribed seed round to commercialize a new liquid biopsy technology for detecting DNA methylation, invented in the U.K. at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at Oxford University.

Money raised through biopharma financings so far in 2020 is double the amount raised within the same timeframe of 2019, partly due to two large financings completed in May by Sanofi SA, which is working on candidates to treat or prevent COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

American depositary shares in CAR T-focused Legend Biotech Corp. (NASDAQ:LEGN), offered in a red hot IPO at $23 each, took off Friday, rising 60.9% to close at $37 per share. Other offerings June 5, a buoyant day for U.S. markets after a surprising drop in unemployment, raised $154 million for cellular trafficking specialist Applied Molecular Transport Inc. and $90 million for Calliditas Therapeutics AB, the developer of an oral formulation of the corticosteroid budesonide.

BEIJING – Three-year-old Asia-focused startup Everest Medicines Ltd. closed one of the biggest financing rounds in China’s health care market this year, adding $310 million to its war chest. The firm is aiming to advance its late-stage assets in-licensed from global partners to the China market soon.