Gilead has waived its option to acquire Pionyr, allowing the US biotech to explore other partnerships and financing opportunities as it advances a promising pipeline of macrophage-targeting antibodies.

Private Company Edition: Arbor is developing drugs based on proprietary gene editors, Acrivon is applying proteomics to precision cancer therapies, and bit.bio is producing differentiated cell products. Also, Marengo launches with $80m, Sanofi invests up to $60m in Gyroscope and Shasqi raises $50m.

The company paid twice Immunomedics’ last closing stock price to access Trodelvy, approved for triple-negative breast cancer with potential in other solid tumors as monotherapy and in combinations.

The big biotech will pay $300m to acquire a 49.9% equity interest in the cancer immunotherapy startup with a buyout option. It is one of several immune checkpoints Gilead has secured access to this year.