Public Company Edition: At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference and Biotech Showcase it was noted that the US IPO market is likely to be less active in the second half of the year as election risk chills investment. Also, Apellis leads recent follow-on offerings.

Once a pariah because of its price gouging, the new approval represents a change of tack from Horizon.

Anticipating a July approval of its cantharidin formulation, Verrica says it is poised to implement a buy-and-bill model for a clinician-administered product with an addressable market of 6 million.

Neuroscience could be this decade’s big growth story, but clinical and market access challenges differ to oncology.

An experienced hand at M&A, Ajay Piramal has done it again – this time selling Decision Resources Group to Clarivate Analytics for $950m. Apart from $900m in cash, Piramal Enterprises will get a stake in Clarivate while the latter expects the acquisition to be earnings-accretive in 2020.

A collaboration between Novo and Fauna will look at animal hibernation and genetic sequencing for hints toward novel therapies for obesity. Pfizer will use Insilico’s machine learning technology in target validation.

Mayzent is the first oral treatment specifically indicated for patients with secondary-progressive multiple sclerosis and while it is expected to be a blockbuster, the company tells Scrip that educational programs for physicians are a priority.

The race is firmly on to be the first PARP inhibitor approved for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, with the FDA giving a speedy review to AstraZeneca and Merck & Co's Lynparza just days after granting the same to Clovis Oncology's Rubraca.

Bayer’s drive to lead a new market opportunity in Europe for histology-independent cancer agents like Vitrakvi has been set back by interim decisions from the UK’s NICE and Germany’s IQWiG, but there is a now a clear pathway to follow.

Once a pariah because of its price gouging, the new approval represents a change of tack from Horizon.

Pipeline Watch is a weekly snapshot of selected late-stage clinical trial events and approvals announced by pharmaceutical and biotech companies at medical and industry conferences, in financial and company presentations, and in company releases and statements.

India’s Hilleman Laboratories says it’s aiming to develop an affordable vaccine that will target pregnant women in low- and middle-income countries to prevent Group B Streptococcus, a potentially fatal infection passed to babies during childbirth.