Private Company Edition: With its lead program in the clinic, Frontier’s $80m series C round will fund trials for additional programs. Also, ORI raises $260m for second fund, Earlybird closed a €173m ($187.1m) fund, Areteia’s series A grew to $425m and Sudo’s series B increased to $147m.

More than 100 biopharma executives and experts told Scrip their predictions for therapeutic area advances in the coming year. The recent commercial success of GLP-1s in diabetes and obesity and their potential in further disease areas fuelled excitement around the metabolic space. Expectations were also positive in neurology following the launch of Leqembi for Alzheimer’s disease in 2023, while the multiple opportunities to improve cancer treatment kept oncology top of the pile overall.

Some 50 experts and executives in the biopharma sector shared their views on the major trends they expect to see driving change in the clinical trials arena in 2024. Artificial intelligence applied to clinical development, greater use of remote monitoring and increased patient diversity in trials were key themes.

Emerging Company Profile: Backed by strong academic talent and a recent $80m fundraising, the US biotech is on a mission to address the unmet medical need in PD-L1 negative cancer by targeting the HHLA2 pathway.