With $800m in upfront cash from United Therapeutics and $400m pegged to approvals for ralinepag, Arena gets capital for its R&D ambitions and a partner of choice to advance its Phase III PAH compound.

Not every drug developer can go public, but biopharma IPOs are launching in multiple markets, including Moderna's prospective $500m US offering and Innovent's $421m Hong Kong IPO. Also, Sarepta prices a $500m FOPO and Omeros sells $210m in notes.

AZ's Mene Pangalos and GSK's Hal Barron are at different stages of overseeing culture changes in their respective R&D workforces - but both agreed at a recent conference that such transformations are key for the future viability of their drug companies.

Germany's pain-focused specialty pharmaceutical firm is adding America to its commercial reach, through acquiring New York's Averitas Pharma to jumpstart its push to commercialize products on its own account, via a niche approach.

Thinking all about scale, China opens the world’s longest sea bridge linking the Pearl River Delta area with Hong Kong and Macao, and the newly-formed 'Bay Area' is already attracting drug makers to look further afield than the traditional Beijing and Shanghai locations.

Despite suffering a setback at the hands of NICE, AstraZeneca's ambitious plans for Lynparza have been boosted by the FDA agreeing to speed up a review of the recent SOLO-1 data which took ESMO by storm last month.

European research-based pharma group proposes reconsideration of Japan’s revised pricing system, warning it is already affecting corporate R&D decisions and will stifle industry investment, innovation and patient access to new therapies if incentives are not improved.

It took NICE nearly three years to offer routine access to Lenvima for thyroid cancer but it has taken just three months from European approval to recommend the drug for advanced or unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

AbbVie has added Mission Therapeutics to its preclinical partnership roster with a neurology deal to develop DUB inhibitors in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. 

Lack of significant reduction on cardiovascular deaths or a composite of major events may have been due to enrollment of a healthier population relative to other studies, said investigators from the DECLARE-TIMI 58 outcomes study, which was reported at the AHA meeting.

Madrigal’s selective THR beta agonist continues to demonstrate hepatic fat-lowering abilities in 36-week data, along with lipid-lowering characteristics. The company hopes to initiate a Phase III study in early 2019.