Private Company Edition: The astonishing pace of venture capital investment in drug development continues with another $1.5bn in financings of $100m or more, including $152m for Pyxis and $126m for Omega. New VC funds also continue to launch, including RiverVest’s fifth fund, totaling $275m.

Idecabtagene vicleucel for fifth-line multiple myeloma lags GSK’s BCMA-targeting ADC Blenrep, but it is months ahead of J&J/Legend’s CAR-T. Abecma is BMS’s second CAR-T approval this year.

Chris Boshoff, Pfizer Oncology chief development officer, said lessons from the rapid pace of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine program are being applied to elranatamab and other cancer therapies.

The current coronavirus vaccines focus on the spike protein but the UK's Scancell believes it has a candidate that also targets the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein which could help tackle existing and future variants.