News Feature in 2022

Dealmaking is returning to pre-pandemic levels with numerous billion-dollar deals being signed, many focusing on immuno-oncology and inflammation.

Companies are investing in a range of pioneering strategies in the search for the next therapeutic advances for immuno-inflammatory diseases.

Many biotechs completed private financing rounds during Autumn which focused on immunotherapy development and more.

Companies developing microbiome-based therapies have been beset by challenges in the past few years, but hopes remain for some applications and could soon be boosted by the first regulatory approval in the field.

Cell and gene therapy companies continue to attract large deals in 2022, despite the financing landscape looking gloomier than in the previous year.

This year’s highest-value licensing deals so far are all in the same therapeutic area—oncology.

Recent major antibody deals involve immune checkpoint inhibitors, antibody–drug conjugates and natural killer cell engagers for cancer.

Since 2021, the oncology sector has seen a string of billion-dollar deals.

Diseases of the central nervous system continue to catalyse dealmaking as companies search for new therapies to tackle some major unmet medical needs.

Spring financings started slowly in March but gradually gathered pace as Emma Dorey describes.

With siRNA-based drugs becoming established as a therapeutic modality, large companies are engaging in the field through deals and acquisitions, and cardiovascular and metabolic diseases are among their targets.

The promise of targeted protein degradation to drug ‘undruggable’ proteins is driving a surge of venture funding and partnerships around this novel therapeutic modality.

The emergence of COVID-19 sparked a huge increase in the volume of infectious disease deals in 2020, but how has the market fared in the past year?

Companies applying artificial intelligence tools in small-molecule drug discovery have recently attracted substantial financing and a multitude of large pharma partners.

Oncology-focused partnerships drove record-level licensing deals in 2021 as companies looked to gain access to novel therapeutic targets and platforms.

Infectious disease diagnostics were prominent among mergers and acquisitions in the molecular diagnostics field, while financing flowed to companies developing liquid biopsy technology.