While analysts are struggling to look further than generic competition facing the French firm's best-seller Somatuline, new chief David Loew tells Scrip that intelligent lifecycle management and focused external deals will drive Ipsen's growth.

Plus deals involving LegoChem/Pyxix, Biohaven/Sosei Heptares, Kyowa Kirin/Helsinn, Dr. Reddy’s/Glenmark, Eisai/Wren, KoBioLabs/Kolmar Korea, Y-Biologics/Pierre Fabre, Generex/Chinese consortium.

Private Company Edition: Venture capital financings didn’t take a break during Thanksgiving week. In addition to the $800m Resilience raised to fund manufacturing services, SomaLogic closed a $121m series A round to fund its proteomic tools for drug discovery and diagnostics development.

The sale of BTG Specialty Pharmaceuticals to two affiliates of European specialty firm SERB leaves Boston Scientific with BTG’s interventional oncology and vascular products.

The big winners of the night were AstraZeneca and Roche as pharma, biotech and allied industries came together online on 2 December to celebrate during a ceremony hosted by Ed Balls.

The UK’s Vectura plc is gaining value from its back catalog of novel compounds through licensing its pan-JAK inhibitor, VR588, to a US start-up, the venture capital-backed Kinaset Therapeutics.

The cholesterol lowerer Crestor, which had peak sales of over $6.60bn, helped AstraZeneca reinvigorate a flagging pipeline. Now it is deemed surplus to requirements.

The companies think they can build out the indications for zuranalone and SAGE-324 faster and more broadly and commercialize the drugs more effectively as partners.

Rather than hitting the acquisition trail, Biogen has taken the licensing route to expand its psychiatric and neurological disorders pipeline.