Pro­to­cols: No­van down­sizes its IPO; GSK floats idea for gov­ern­ment-backed vac­cine de­vel­op­ment

Durham, NC-based No­van has shrunk its am­bi­tions for an up­com­ing IPO. The biotech – which is work­ing on new treat­ments for ac­ne and oth­er skin con­di­tions – laid out plans to raise about $45 mil­lion by sell­ing 3.75 mil­lion shares at $11 to $13 a share. The biotech ini­tial­ly filed an S-1 in search of a $60 mil­lion wind­fall.

GSK is at­tract­ing some at­ten­tion for a new idea to cre­ate a spe­cial vac­cine de­vel­op­ment unit that can jump in­to ac­tion when­ev­er a new pan­dem­ic threat ap­pears. Big Phar­mas have been re­luc­tant to go af­ter Zi­ka and oth­er out­breaks be­cause there could be lit­tle fi­nan­cial in­cen­tive for any prod­ucts they may even­tu­al­ly pro­duce. So GSK ex­ecs are telling Bloomberg that they could set up a unit, pro­vid­ed some gov­ern­ment agen­cies agree to foot the bill.

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