The $300m upfront payment should provide considerable runway for the base-editing company, which also plans multiple IND filings and enrolling the first patient in its sickle cell study this year.

The firm’s lead asset, reproxalap, one-upped Novartis’s Xiidra in a mid-stage ophthalmology study, signalling its first-line promise in a market ridden with compliance issues.

A slow start to the year in health care is usually tempered by announcements that build up to investor conference season. However, early 2022’s plethora of negative announcements may continue biotech’s unloved status of 2021.

Initial public offering momentum decelerated as stock prices declined last year, but even with lower valuations making M&A more attractive, the IPO market this year is expected to be active.