Although there weren’t many large-scale partnerships as in previous years, Korean biopharma firms were involved in a broad range of deals across diverse therapeutic areas in 2020, with ADCs, oncology and domestic alliances emerging as key trends. 

NIH’s National Cancer Institute licensed two experimental cancer therapies in the past month to biopharma firms, leading a heavy slate of cancer-focused tech transfer deal-making.

Novartis/TScan and Gilead/Kite/oNKo-innate partnerships seek to advance cancer cell therapy. J&J, Bayer among the latest pharmas to unveil partnerships to fight the novel coronavirus.

Compass raises $132m in Series A as it moves from screening to the clinic, and start-up HotSpot Therapeutics comes out of stealth mode with a $45m Series A financing co-led by Atlas Venture and Sofinnova Partners.