Becoming a first-time CEO of a biotech company in 2020 meant dealing with unexpected challenges without any instruction book to follow. Santhera Pharmaceuticals’ Dario Eklund not only had COVID-19 upheaval to manage, but also a late-stage trial failure, a virtual financing and a new plan for the company to sell to stakeholders.

German biotech could realize more than $2bn in earnouts under pact with Roivant. Galmed teams with MyBiotics in attempt to optimize clinical response to its Phase III NASH candidate Aramchol.

Swiss company Santhera's lengthy and problem-laden journey to repurpose its already marketed idebenone for use in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy has ended in failure. The company has withdrawn its EU filing for the product following its announcement that it was halting development.

Former Novartis CEO Jimenez co-founded Aditum with former NIBR president Mark Fishman; they raised $133m and are launching Tempero Bio. Also, Atea, Galecto and SQZ went public along with one more health care SPAC, Royalty Pharma upped its Vertex royalty revenues and Mirati’s FOPO raised $926.3m.