Heading into the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference, pharmas have been focusing on discovery alliances. J&J’s deals look into novel tissue-targeted drugs, ionic liquid delivery technology and cancer vaccine R&D. Lilly teams with Entos on novel methods for delivering neurology drugs.

Ahead of the usual flurry of deal-making in January, Roche gets retinal cell therapy candidate from Lineage Cell Therapeutics, Pfizer subsidiary Amplyx licenses antiviral candidate to Vera, and GSK expands neurology tie-up with Ligand.

Also, AstraZeneca presents more promising data for its COVID-19 antibody cocktail Evusheld and Novavax says its vaccine is able to neutralize the Omicron variant. 

Ridinilazole fell short of significance in a late-stage trial, with some analysts now anticipating the company will alter its therapeutic strategy entirely.