Lobbying groups frequently send news releases and talking points to journalists as a way to influence reporting. Right now, the pharmaceutical industry’s primary lobbying shop, PhRMA, wants everyone to ignore the clear-cut rise in prescription drug spending.
RA Capital and a fleet of other investors are putting $175 million behind Oak Hill Bio, a startup trying to revive an experimental Angelman syndrome drug that Roche shelved.
Oak Hill is competing with Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical and Ionis Pharmaceuticals, both of which are already running Phase 3 trials of similar drugs for the same disease. Ultragenyx will have results this year.
Axiom Biosciences, a privately held developer of regenerative therapies and targeted biologics that rebranded last month from Cytonus Therapeutics, made headlines around the world when it announced plans to go public through an initial public offering (IPO), since companies that go public typically do so quietly, by filing registration statements with regulators and exchanges.
What made Axiom’s IPO plans even more newsworthy: the San Diego-area company (based in suburban Carlsbad, CA) said it intends to trade its first public shares on the Hong Kong Exchange (HKEX) rather than a U.S. market like Nasdaq, the leading market for biotech IPOs, or the New York Stock Exchange.
Why Hong Kong? Axiom says the special administrative region of China possesses deep biotechnology expertise, a strong appetite for clinical-stage innovation, and direct proximity to the Asian partners and capital advancing the company’s science.
“For us, Hong Kong is a very good fit for the stage of company that we’re in, and the timing is right,” Remo Moomiaie-Qajar, MD, Axiom’s founder, CEO, and chairman, told GEN. “Hong Kong has a very well-established investor base that really understands the time requirements and the capital needs for biopharma, but in particular, cell therapies. And ultimately, given the fact that we have been working in Asia with partnerships for several years, this landing spot for us in Hong Kong seemed to be the right choice in a broader strategy.”
Does that mean the United States is finished for biotech innovation?
“I would not state that at all,” he replied. “I think the United States is very much still a leader. It is also very central to our strategy, and the FDA is really core to all of our decisions moving forward into clinics. I just see that this is, and I speak only for us, part of a bigger global strategy which includes both Asia and the United States.”
“Ecosystem to thrive”
Remo Moomiaie-Qajar, MD, Axiom Biosciences founder, CEO, and chairman
However, Axiom has publicly offered other reasons for its move that convey a warmer biopharma climate in Hong Kong compared with the United States. In its announcement, the company said its Hong Kong IPO plans were “reflecting a broader shift in where the world’s most ambitious science finds the ecosystem to thrive.”
And speaking on CNBC, Moomiaie-Qajar raised a concern with the U.S. biopharma climate when it comes to financing: “Some of the most important science in the world is being built in the United States, but the way it gets funded hasn’t kept pace.”
He elaborated on that remark, telling GEN: “That speaks to a broad range of problems that we have in financing within this industry. In particular, I was referencing the private side.”
“The reality is, as you progress with your pipelines and you cross over the threshold of being a clinical stage company, and then you have clinical success, it requires a significant amount—more capital to get your assets to move forward, and hopefully, to a BLA [Biologics License Application],” Moomiaie-Qajar explained. “But the number of check writers diminishes at the same time. So, there is seemingly no shortage of capital within biopharma, but I do believe there’s a financing issue and an access issue.”
Hence Axiom’s exploration of whether this was the right time to go public—a question Axiom is answering in the affirmative: “Hong Kong, given our strategic fit, and relationships and proximity to our partners in Asia, was the right first decision in establishing our public identity as a company.”
Comeback mode
The IPO market has been in comeback mode most of this year, with 14 companies selling their first public shares on U.S. markets since January, and another five doing so overseas, in Asian markets that include the Tokyo Stock Exchange, South Korea’s tech-focused KOSDAQ, and the Hong Kong Exchange.
The biggest American biotech IPO—this year, and of all time—was an upsized offering that took place last month, when Parabilis Medicines (Nasdaq: PBLS) raised an eye-popping $770.5 million in gross proceeds by selling some 38.5 million shares at $20 per share. Parabilis’ shares have risen 56% since then, to $31.28 at Friday’s closing bell.
The latest biotech IPO, also upsized, came on Thursday when Scribe Therapeutics (Nasdaq: SCTX), a developer of in vivo CRISPR gene-edited therapies, raised $128.7 million gross by selling 8.58 million shares at the high end of its price range at $15 per share. The shares jumped 44% on Friday, finishing the day at $21.65. Scribe also raised another $7.5 million gross by selling 500,000 shares at the IPO price to Sanofi (Euronext Paris: SAN) in a concurrent private placement.
But the best-performing U.S. biotech IPO is Veradermics (NYSE: MANE), a developer of treatments for dermatology and aesthetic conditions whose shares have catapulted more than six-fold, rocketing 545% since pricing its IPO at $17 per share on February 3, closing Friday at $109.66 per share. Earlier this month, Veradermics announced positive topline results from its open-label Phase II Study 207 trial (NCT06527365) assessing VDPHL01, an extended-release oral minoxidil formulation, in women with mild-to-moderate pattern hair loss.
Hong Kong’s largest biotech IPO so far this year is Suzhou Ribo Life Science (6938.HK), a developer of oligonucleotide treatments based on RNA interference and other technologies. Ribo raised more than HKD 1.8 billion ($229.5 million) by selling 31,610,400 shares at HKD 57.97 ($7.39) on January 9. Since then, however, Ribo’s stock price has dipped 7.5%, closing Thursday at HKD 53.60 ($6.83).
Also going public via HKEX this year were medtech companies such as Hangzhou Diagens Biotechnology(2526.HK), a developer of artificial intelligence (AI)-based medical imaging tools whose customers include specialized genomics research labs and cytogenetics labs, as well as hospital pathology departments. Diagens went public March 30, raising about $101 million by selling 7,999,200 shares at HKD 99.00 ($12.62)—a price that has since more than doubled, leaping 172% after closing Friday at HKD 269.00 ($34.30).
HKEX lists 84 biotech companies, compared with more than 600 for Nasdaq, according to their respective websites.
Staying in America
Over time, Axiom plans to pursue a secondary stock listing in the United States. Moomiaie-Qajar says Axiom will remain an American company: “We are a U.S.-based, U.S.-headquartered company that is going to be something that does not change.”
Axiom says it intends to be the first U.S. biotech company planning to go public in Hong Kong. That’s the path that was successfully trod by AI-based drug developer Insilico Medicine (3696.HK) when it went public in December, raising HKD 2.277 billion (about $292.3 million at the time; now worth $290.3 million) on the Hong Kong Exchange by selling 94,690,500 shares at HKD 24.05 ($3.08, now worth $3.06) each.
Insilico’s stock has nearly doubled, soaring 96% since then, closing Friday at HKD 47.06 ($6.00) thanks to several collaborations with biopharma giants and an upbeat revenue and profit forecast for the first half of 2026.
“From my perspective, it certainly seeded a little bit of certainty in my mind that this was a good decision, because they’ve done really well post-IPO,” Moomiaie-Qajar commented.
Insilico’s parent InSilico Medicine Cayman TopCo lists a registered office in the Cayman Islands, while Insilico’s website lists additional offices in Cambridge, MA (announced in 2024 as the company’s headquarters), New York, Montreal, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taipei.
“Very high listing standards”
“One of the reasons you would list in Hong Kong is to openly compete with the companies in the ‘China Gym’ and also take advantage of the increased visibility and transparency with the very high listing standards,” Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, Insilico’s chairman, executive director, CEO, and CBO, told GEN.
“Many companies want to list there. But the barriers for listing are very high even for the biotech track.”
A company planning to go public, he explained, needs not only an asset in Phase II studies, but a clear funding history from credible investors, several years’ worth of cash to operate, and a level of corporate stability that the exchange will assess.
“For very early biotech companies it may be much easier to list in the United States,” Zhavoronkov said. “In general, it is a positive trend because biotech must become more international and collaborate and compete internationally. Competing for capital is the advanced form of competition because finance usually runs biotech—you cannot discover and develop drugs without it. Companies and ideas in biotech should become more fluid internationally. Public listings make companies and ideas more competitive and transparent.”
Together with Seoul-based, privately held Medinno, Axiom has co-developed its lead regenerative therapy based on umbilical cord-derived, conditioned mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) sourced from Wharton’s Jelly. The therapy is under study in two pipeline programs that aim to treat newborns with severe brain injury: AX-007 for intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH); and AX-008 for hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE).
Positive Phase I results
Earlier this month, Axiom announced positive results from a Phase I dose-escalation study assessing the safety, tolerability, and preliminary efficacy of the regenerative therapy across a range of doses in nine newborns—five diagnosed with severe IVH, four with HIE—following direct administration into the central nervous system.
Across all doses studied, the MSC therapy achieved a 0% mortality rate at 12 months compared to the historical natural 46% mortality rate within the first year of life for infants with severe IVH. The therapy also showed a favorable safety profile, with no treatment-related serious adverse events seen.
“We’re now in discussions with the FDA to move those programs into the next stages, which would be a Phase IIb study,” Moomiaie-Qajar said. The FDA has granted AX-007 and AX-008 its Rare Pediatric Disease and Orphan Disease designations.
Axiom is also evaluating an expansion of its therapy development into adult ischemic stroke, which affects approximately 700,000 adults annually in the United States, and additional neurological indications.
“We feel very confident that given our clinical trial success in Phase I, the expansion of our valuable asset into three, four indications is going to be a good basis for us to launch our IPO, but then after the IPO really go further and deeper into our pipeline that we’ve been developing for eight years,” Moomiaie-Qajar said. “We have a lot now that we need to translate into clinics.”
Leaders and laggards
Immix Biopharma (Nasdaq: IMMX) shares tumbled 14% from $10.25 to $8.80 on July 20 following the arrest of Ronald L. Fischer, 70, who was one of Rhode Island’s Most Wanted fugitives—and who, under the alias of Richard Graydon, MD, PhD, served as the company’s CMO. Fischer was arrested by federal and Rhode Island authorities off the coast of New Jersey on a U.S. Marshals Service Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution warrant, having been a fugitive since fleeing Rhode Island during a criminal trial in 2005, the U.S. Justice Department stated. Fischer was convicted in absentia of First-Degree Sexual Assault after failing to appear for trial and remained wanted for Failure to Appear, First Degree Sexual Assault, and Flight to Avoid Prosecution. Authorities also said Fischer was living on a 56-foot sailing vessel called The Silver Lining, which was registered under the Graydon name. As “Graydon,” Fischer was appointed Immix’s CMO in March, the company announced March 30 in a press release no longer posted on its website. “As of July 17, 2026, Richard Graydon has been terminated and is no longer with the company for reasons unrelated to his activities at the company,” Immix disclosed in a July 20 regulatory filing, adding: “Given his short tenure, management believes there is no material effect on the business.”
Novocure (NVCR) shares jumped 28% from $15.57 to $19.99 Thursday after the Swiss-based oncology drug/device developer developer of the Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) cancer therapy reported second quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of $10.757 million, vs. an adjusted loss of $9.934 million a year earlier, on net revenue that rose nearly 16% year-over-year, to $183.584 million from $158.805 million. Novocure still finished Q2 in the red with a net loss of $15.658 million, improved from the $40.139 million net loss of the second quarter of 2025. Novocure credited its 18% global active patient growth across indications for the positive numbers; as of June 30, more than 280 active patients were on Optune Pax®, a wearable device designed to deliver its TTFields therapy for adults with locally advanced pancreatic cancer concomitant with gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel. “The main takeaway is that the early U.S. adoption of Optune Pax is off to an encouraging start,” J.P. Morgan analyst Jessica Fye wrote in a research note. Novocure shares reached a 52-week high of $21.35 at the start of the trading day before sliding 12% to $17.65 on apparent profit-taking.
In 2025, there were 216 active drug shortages in the U.S., impacting Americans’ access to lifesaving medications. The resilience of our pharmaceuticals supply chains has been increasingly framed as a national security issue, including by the White House — and rightly so, as Covid-19 magnified the massive costs of a health system ill-equipped to care for its population.
But this national security framing has heavily skewed toward a U.S.-China competition lens, distracting from the real root causes of our pharmaceuticals supply chain vulnerabilities: inadequate regulation of an industry that tends to prioritize profit over America’s health.
Samsung Biologics made an all-cash public tender offer of approximately $1.8 billion to acquire Switzerland-based PolyPeptide Group, a CDMO specializing in peptide-based active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
Samsung views the deal as expanding its capabilities beyond antibodies and ADCs to include peptide therapeutics, particularly in obesity and diabetes, including GLP-1 therapies, while advancing innovation across high-growth areas such as oncology and other emerging indications. The transaction brings together Samsung Biologics’ global manufacturing scale with PolyPeptide’s specialized peptide expertise to create a differentiated, end-to-end multi-modality CDMO platform, notes a Samsung spokesperson.
PolyPeptide operates an integrated development-to-commercial model with growth focused on a modular, automation approach which, the company points out, gives it the flexibility to adapt quickly to changing market demand.
The planned acquisition extends beyond adding capacity in that it also lays the foundation for Samsung Biologics’ next phase of growth, supported by a strong pipeline of active peptide projects that includes a deep late-stage portfolio, notes a Samsung official. PolyPeptide operates global sites across Sweden, Belgium, France, the U.S., India, together with a corporate office in Switzerland and a separate Innovation Center in Strasbourg, France, with capabilities in R&D, development, and commercial manufacturing.
Upon completion of the transaction, Samsung will bring together PolyPeptide’s experienced team and specialized peptide expertise with Samsung’s scientific and manufacturing strengths and global operations, says John Rim, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of Samsung Biologics.
“This acquisition reinforces our long-term growth strategy by not only broadening our service portfolio with modality expansion into peptides including GLP-1, but by also boosting our geographic reach and proximity further within the U.S., Europe, and India,” continues Rim.
“After a comprehensive review of strategic options, the Board is convinced that Samsung Biologics’ offer is compelling for our shareholders, delivering an attractive cash price and immediate, certain value today,” adds Peter Wilden, chairman of the board of directors of PolyPeptide. “At the same time, it represents a transformational opportunity to accelerate our strategic ambitions at a scale we could not reach alone.”
Chris Moxham, PhD, has been a “drug hunter” for three decades, building data-driven platforms as vice president of quantitative biology at Eli Lilly, and CSO of Folcrum Therapeutics, in recent years.
“Technology is now advancing to allow us to interrogate the transcriptome, which is a phenomenal blueprint for cell state and fate,” he told GEN Edge.
Moxham currently leads Transcripta Bio as founder and CEO. The AI-driven drug discovery start-up is developing small molecule therapeutics to modulate gene expression disease signatures.
Transcripta has now announced a $24 million funding raise to advance IND-enabling studies and clinical preparation of its neurological disease portfolio, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD).Mayo Clinic and Omnimed will join JAZZ Venture Partners, BlueYard Capital, and a group of life sciences family offices, as investors.
Phase II clinical trials are “where the rubber meets the road,” says Moxham. He emphasizes that de-risking therapies early is key to improving drug discovery success rates, which often fall below 10%.
Founded in 2023, the Palo Alto-based company currently houses fifteen employees. “This isn’t a company you could have built five years ago,” highlighted Moxham. He cites the intersection of scalable sequencing technology, compute power, and lab automation among the factors enabling the rise of AI-driven biology.
The company’s proprietary platform takes a three-pronged approach. First, disease signatures are identified using patient-derived single cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) data. An in-house generated “drug atlas” then measures the effects of small molecule perturbations across 80% of the transcriptome, capturing full dose-response profiles in diverse cellular contexts, including glutamatergic and motor neurons, fibroblasts, and keratinocytes. These data power AI models that identify promising compounds that can therapeutically modulate gene expression.
Transcripta’s neurological disease pipeline is structured as a tiered portfolio of novel molecules and repurposed clinical-stage assets, with the latter benefiting from existing human safety data that can shorten development timelines and lower costs.
In 19q12 syndrome, a form of ASD, the team demonstrated that entrectinib, an FDA-approved oncology drug, could reverse disease when given at low concentrations. One patient case demonstrated clinical benefit within nine months after taking the drug.
In Huntington’s disease, Transcripta’s platform identified novel molecules that could downregulate DNA mismatch repair protein and validated therapeutic target, MSH3. The company plans to file an IND next year. Transcripta is also pursuing pre-IND research in FSHD and myonic dystrophy.
Moxham emphasizes the generalizability of the platform. “We are now looking at hundreds of diseases with this type of approach,” he says.
Transcripta plans to introduce another cohort of therapeutic programs by Q2 of 2027.
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Good morning. All my social media feeds have been filled with Jimothy the raccoon, and I hope your feeds now will be too.
The need-to-know this morning
Celldex Therapeutics said its experimental drug barzolvolimab failed in a Phase 2 study in the skin condition prurigo nodularis, sending its shares down in premarket trading. The company is continuing to test the drug in a number of other indications, with data expected in September or October from Phase 3 trials in chronic spontaneous urticaria, which causes chronic hives.
Summit Therapeutics released updated survival data from its Phase 3 HARMONi trial testing the drug ivonescimab in a form of non-small cell lung cancer. The FDA is set to make an approval decision on the drug in the disease by Nov. 14.
Pharma tries to tamp down broad China restrictions
From STAT’s Daniel Payne: Pharmaceutical leaders are trying to convince policymakers to back off pushes for aggressive restrictions on investments in Chinese firms.
A long-awaited moment in preventive cardiology arrived last week, when enlicitide (which Merck is selling under the name Lipfendra) was approved by the FDA to lower blood cholesterol levels.
As the first oral PCSK9 inhibitor — powerful cholesterol-lowering medications, that, until now, have only been injectable — enlicitide itself is an impressive achievement. It punctuates a story of pharmaceutical innovation that has glided from the stories of families enrolled in the Dallas Heart Study at the bedside, to drug targets discovered at the lab bench, all ultimately transforming care back at the bedside.
It also comes at an opportune time. With new clinical guidelines supporting a more aggressive approach to lowering cholesterol levels, enlicitide may be particularly useful for people with either established or at high risk for cardiovascular disease. For the millions of Americans who fit into these groups, it has already been hailed as a game changer. But the story here — of whom it would actually help, and what it implies about prevention today — is more complicated.
Novo Nordisk on Tuesday sued Eli Lilly for allegedly running a “deceptive” ad campaign that uses “outdated clinical trials” to make its obesity and diabetes drugs appear more effective, marking a new phase in one of the pharmaceutical industry’s most intense rivalries.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in New Jersey, Novo argued that Lilly has been comparing the highest doses of its weight loss drug Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro with lower doses of Novo’s Wegovy and Ozempic.
“What has brought us to this moment is what we now see as a nationwide pattern, by Lilly, of deceptive advertising. They are intentionally confusing consumers,” John Kuckelman, Novo’s general counsel and senior vice president, said in an interview.
One of Rhode Island’s most-wanted fugitives — a former doctor convicted of sexual assault but on the run for 20 years — appears to have been living a secret life as a biotech executive.
Ronald Fischer, 70, was arrested last week by federal and Rhode Island authorities after they tracked and boarded a 56-foot sailboat cruising off the coast of New Jersey. The former anesthesiologist disappeared in 2005 while on trial for first-degree sexual assault.
The boat was registered under the name Richard Graydon, an alias used by Fischer, U.S. Marshals said. That is the same name as a doctor and seasoned drug development executive hired last March by Immix Biopharma, a Los Angeles-based biotech company, as its new chief medical officer.
