The big pharma has a gene therapy R&D site in New York from its Prevail Therapeutics buy; the RNA-focused Boston site also will conduct drug delivery research benefitting programs at both locations.

Heading into the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference, pharmas have been focusing on discovery alliances. J&J’s deals look into novel tissue-targeted drugs, ionic liquid delivery technology and cancer vaccine R&D. Lilly teams with Entos on novel methods for delivering neurology drugs.

Private Company Edition: Scrip spoke with DDF US partner Jonathan Behr about the convergence of emerging science, venture capital investment and rising big pharma interest in neurodegeneration. Also, in recent VC financings HotSpot raised $100m, while Curie and Ablaze debuted with $75m each. 

French pharma makes $180m equity investment in Owkin under collaboration targeting four cancer types. Pyramid gets global license to MPS1 precision cancer candidate from Voronoi.