Public Company Edition: The new year started with two companies signaling plans for significant near-term initial public offerings, following Inhibikase’s launch as the last IPO of 2020. Other recent financial highlights include layoffs at Calithera and Regenxbio’s $200m Zolgensma royalty sale.

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. 

Emerging Company Profile: UK biotech Pneumagen expects to enter clinical studies in 2021 with a potential first-in-class glycan-targeted protein for preventing respiratory tract infections.

Although SRF813 isn’t likely to reach the clinic until 2021, GSK likes cell therapy’s monotherapy and combination potential. Lilly bids $880m to acquire neurodegenerative cell therapy firm Prevail.