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3 July, 2025
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top stories
1. Number of megarounds drop 38% in first half as biotechs struggle against worsening slump
2. Structure in partnering talks for GLP-1 pill as mid-stage readout nears
3. The Trump administration is promoting wearable health devices — with or without evidence
4.
news briefing
Cloudbreak’s shares stumble in Hong Kong debut; Sinovac squares off against activist
5. Sage talked to 43 'counterparties' before inking Supernus deal
6.
peer review
Now private, bluebird bio continues leadership revamp; Roche R&D exec announces retirement
7. 4DMT lays off staff, reshuffles team as it doubles down on Phase 3 plans
8. Dizal’s lung cancer pill approval sets up competition with J&J
9. Exclusive: German CDMO BioSpring embarks on €100M+ nucleic acid factory
more stories
 
in focus
Jaimy Lee
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Kyle LaHucik took a look at biotech’s favorite funding trend of 2024, and he found that the megarounds are no longer as popular as they used to be. The number of nine-figure rounds dropped 38% in the first half of the year, compared to the same period in 2024. But the average dollar amount is rising.

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Jaimy Lee
Deputy Editor, Endpoints News
1
by Kyle LaHucik

Even biotech's "haves" are strug­gling.

The sec­tor's fraught fund­ing en­vi­ron­ment has been in a slump go­ing on three years, and it's cre­at­ed a world of "haves and have-nots" for pri­vate drug de­vel­op­ment star­tups. Com­pa­nies with ex­pe­ri­enced man­age­ment teams and a Rolodex of club­by in­vestors to re­ly on tend to have been able to weath­er the storm and se­cure large fund­ing rounds. But many star­tups, par­tic­u­lar­ly those that are pre­clin­i­cal, have with­ered.

It now ap­pears that even few­er star­tups are se­cur­ing their place as "haves."

In the first six months, 31 pri­vate biotechs se­cured nine-fig­ure fund­ing rounds, which are of­ten re­ferred to as megarounds, ac­cord­ing to an End­points News track­er. That's a 38% drop from the 50 star­tups that land­ed big-mon­ey in­vest­ments in the first half of 2024.

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Ray Stevens, Structure Therapeutics CEO
2
by Elizabeth Cairns

It is a truth uni­ver­sal­ly ac­knowl­edged that a biotech in pos­ses­sion of a mid-stage GLP-1 must be in want of a part­ner. Struc­ture Ther­a­peu­tics is no ex­cep­tion. With Phase 2 tri­als of its obe­si­ty pill set to read out soon, it's in­ter­est­ed in cut­ting deals.

End­points News caught up with CEO Ray Stevens while he was at­tend­ing the an­nu­al meet­ing of the Amer­i­can Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion last month in Chica­go.

Aleniglipron, for­mer­ly cod­ed GS­BR-1290, is in two Phase 2 obe­si­ty tri­als called AC­CESS and AC­CESS II. Their pur­pose is dose-find­ing for Phase 3, with 120 mg in AC­CESS and 180 mg and 240 mg in AC­CESS II, Stevens said.

“We’re re­al­ly look­ing for that up­per dose," he added.

By the end of this year, Struc­ture ex­pects to re­port topline da­ta on weight loss at around eight months, and then aims to start Phase 3 in 2026.

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3
by Shelby Livingston

In June, HHS Sec­re­tary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at a con­gres­sion­al hear­ing that his agency is poised to launch a ma­jor ad cam­paign to en­cour­age Amer­i­cans to use wear­ables so “peo­ple can take con­trol of their own health, they can take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, they can see as you know what food is do­ing to their glu­cose lev­els,” among oth­er met­rics.

He re­vealed his vi­sion of every Amer­i­can us­ing a wear­able with­in four years, go­ing so far as to sug­gest the de­vices can pro­duce ben­e­fits on par with pop­u­lar GLP-1 obe­si­ty and di­a­betes drugs.

While Kennedy wasn’t spe­cif­ic about the type of wear­able, it’s like­ly he was re­fer­ring to con­tin­u­ous glu­cose mon­i­tors — small biosen­sors worn on the arm to pro­vide a mea­sure of the sug­ar lev­els in a per­son’s blood. The sen­sors are of­ten paired with an app that shows trends in glu­cose lev­els and pro­vides lifestyle and nu­tri­tion rec­om­men­da­tions based on the da­ta col­lect­ed.

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News Briefing: Quick hits from the biopharma web
4
by ENDPOINTS

Plus, news about Brain­Ev­er, Clin­i­gen, MaaT Phar­ma, Dyadic and Nek­tar Ther­a­peu­tics:

Cloud­break Phar­ma shares fall in Hong Kong de­but: The oph­thal­mol­o­gy biotech, which has of­fices in Cal­i­for­nia and Chi­na, went pub­lic on the Hong Kong Stock Ex­change on Thurs­day in an IPO that raised about $77 mil­lion ($611 mil­lion Hong Kong dol­lars). In­vestors did not re­act warm­ly on the first day of trad­ing, with the stock falling 38% by mar­ket close. Mul­ti­ple drug­mak­ers are con­sid­er­ing go­ing pub­lic on the HKEX this year, as com­pared to the qui­et IPO mar­ket in the US. — Kyle LaHu­cik

Bat­tle over Sino­vac con­tin­ues: In­vestors in the Chi­nese vac­cine com­pa­ny con­tin­ue to pub­licly chal­lenge each oth­er, with Vi­vo Cap­i­tal say­ing the US Dis­trict Court of Mass­a­chu­setts grant­ed a pre­lim­i­nary in­junc­tion against ac­tivist in­vestor 1Globe Cap­i­tal and barred “1Globe from mak­ing fur­ther ma­te­ri­al­ly mis­lead­ing state­ments re­gard­ing their share­hold­ing or in­ten­tions with re­spect to Sino­vac.” The biotech plans to have a spe­cial meet­ing of share­hold­ers on Tues­day. — Kyle LaHu­cik