Deal activity over the past seven days sees Roche knock back Inovio a second time, Regeneron plan for its future via an alliance with Adicet Bio, Amgen supplement its preclinical pipeline with a candidate from Advaxis, and Pfizer shore up its gene therapy ambitions with an acquisition.

Two South Korean stem cell therapy ventures, Corestem and CHA Biotech, are taking divergent strategies in R&D and commercialization, one pushing ahead with the rapid launch of its first product and the other taking time to optimize its pipeline. During a recent stem cell industry investor relations session in Seoul, the companies unveiled the thinking behind their pipeline progress and business strategies.

Although the pandemic could slightly delay CrystalGenomics’ business and R&D plans, the South Korean biotech is still hopeful this year will bring long-awaited progress for anticancer candidate ivaltinostat as well as discovery of its potential as a treatment for the new coronavirus.