Public Company Edition: Codiak, Kiromic, Aligos and Opthea have fallen below their initial public offering values, while Tarsus and Praxis are trading higher. Also, 5AM, MPM and Cormorant took biotech SPACs public and Evotec led recent non-IPO financings with a €250m private placement.

New York biotech is partnering with researchers at Columbia, Kansas State and Southern Research to address the pandemic.

Merck pays undisclosed upfront fees and promises up to $500m for milestones under licensing and collaboration agreement. Meanwhile, Tetraphase and Xerava are being acquired by La Jolla, after previous bids by Melinta and AcelRx.

Emerging Company Profile: South Korea-based ILIAS Biologics aims to establish an exosome therapeutic development pathway using its platform technology EXPLOR, which is said to enable loading large therapeutic proteins into exosomes and stably deliver encapsulated cargo proteins to target cells.