Private Company Edition: The global accelerator has new commitments from HHS and the Wellcome Trust. Also, Apollo buys into Sofinnova Partners with an up to €1bn investment, Castle Creek raised $124.6m in private funding this year in lieu of an IPO and Remix closed a $70m series B round. 

On the way to seeking approval for istaroxime in acute heart failure, Windtree became convinced that early cardiogenic shock could be a good get-to-market strategy for its blood pressure-improving drug.

There is no shortage of news relating to potential new COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. Among other things, zapnometinib, an antiviral compound being developed by German firm Atriva, has shown strong efficacy against Omicron in a Phase I study. Also, Sweden’s ISR and Iconovo have expanded their collaboration deal to accelerate the development of an inhaled COVID-19 vaccine.

AbbVie pays $130m up front with up to $870m in earnout potential for UCB spinout focused on SV2A modulators. BioNTech gets rights to preclinical TCR candidates for solid tumors from Medigene.