Biocon is confident of its “four channel strategy” for the upcoming debut of biosimilar Humira in the US and also asserts it’s well positioned to compete when price cuts come into play for Sanofi’s Lantus next year.

Private Company Edition: Venture capital mega-rounds of $100m or more held steady in April after a slow January and February then a surge in March, but VC fundraising is down overall this year. In recent raises, Enveda series B expanded to $119m, Vedanta brought in $106.5m and Convergent raised $90m.

Gains from its COVID-19 vaccine made Serum Institute’s founder the world’s richest healthcare billionaire. But the demand for boosters hasn’t materialized as expected, leading to a deal with Biocon being tweaked. Meanwhile, gains from India’s first indigenously-developed HPV vaccine and Oxford-partnered malaria vaccine seem imminent.

Hasten brought in $315m, and Orbital garnered $270m, but while multiple venture firms have raised large new funds, Q1 saw the lowest amount of biopharma VC fundraising in a single quarter since 2019.