The $300m upfront payment should provide considerable runway for the base-editing company, which also plans multiple IND filings and enrolling the first patient in its sickle cell study this year.

The number of new drugs that launched in 2021 was on par with recent high trends, but launch trajectories generally underwhelmed commercially – except for COVID-19 vaccines.

The Swiss giant is paying up to $1.5bn upfront to get hold of Gyroscope's AAV2-based one-time investigational gene therapy for geographic atrophy, an advanced form of dry AMD that leads to irreversible vision loss.

Public Company Edition: SVB Leerink predicts a rebound from an ongoing trough in biotech stock valuations during the second quarter of 2022. Also, Vaxxinity launched the third US IPO of November, bringing the year’s total to 102 and BridgeBio led recent financings with a $750m debt agreement.