All the en­thu­si­asm that’s been whipped up in the gene ther­a­py field this past year has helped stoke the ru­mor mill about all sorts of pos­si­bil­i­ties for uniQure $QURE, which has seen a quick run-up on its share price. And now the biotech’s back­ers are get­ting a big boost from Bloomberg to keep the run go­ing.

There’s no deal to re­port, but sources are telling the busi­ness news ser­vice that uniQure has brought in ad­vis­ers to see what might be done — in­clud­ing a sale — with the phar­ma gi­ants now prowl­ing the clin­i­cal play­ers for part­ners and ac­qui­si­tions.

Cue more ex­cit­ed chat­ter on Twit­ter about the pos­si­bil­i­ties.

The sto­ry comes in the wake of No­var­tis’ $8.7 bil­lion ac­qui­si­tion of AveX­is, which de­liv­ered the new­ly ap­proved gene ther­a­py Zol­gens­ma, now the high­est priced ther­a­py on the plan­et (for a one-time use). Blue­bird may have raised more ques­tions than they an­swered with its new­ly an­nounced $1.8 mil­lion stick­er on their first gene ther­a­py ap­proval, but they’ve kept things in­ter­est­ing. And Roche may be strug­gling, but it’s in­tent on clos­ing its $4.3 bil­lion Spark buy­out to add gene ther­a­py to the port­fo­lio.

UniQure start­ed the year with a share price of $28.53. Now, close to 6 months lat­er, it will open in the morn­ing at $72.55, with a $2.74 bil­lion mar­ket cap that would make it an easy bolt-on for any big play­er look­ing to ei­ther get in­to the game or ex­pand the team.

That said, these source-dri­ven moves to “ex­plore op­tions” quite of­ten end nowhere. UniQure has been around for 21 years and is wide­ly fol­lowed these days for its late-stage he­mo­phil­ia B gene ther­a­py pro­gram. They don’t need to plant a ‘for sale’ sign in the yard to make it known they’re avail­able.

Just how hot is gene ther­a­py in the deal world these days? We’ll take an in-depth look at the num­bers for you ear­ly Mon­day.

Biohaven is at risk of making a habit of disappointing its investors. 

Late Friday the biotech $BHVN reported that the FDA had rejected its application for riluzole, an old drug that they had made over into a sublingual formulation that dissolves under the tongue. According to Biohaven, the FDA had a problem with the active ingredient used in a bioequivalence study back in 2017, which they got from the Canadian drugmaker Apotex.

Let the long battle for biosimilars in the cancer space begin.

Amgen has launched its Avastin and Herceptin copycats — licensed from the predecessors of Allergan — almost two years after the FDA had stamped its approval on Mvasi (bevacizumab-awwb) and three months after the Kanjinti OK (trastuzumab-anns). While the biotech had been fielding biosimilars in Europe, this marks their first foray in the US — and the first oncology biosimilars in the country.

→ On the same day it announced a $17.5 million Series C, life sciences and health data company Seer unveiled that it had lured former FDA commissioner and ex-CMS administrator Mark McClellan on to its board. “Mark’s deep understanding of the health care ecosystem and visionary insights on policy reform will be crucial in informing our thinking as we work to bring our liquid biopsy and life sciences products to market,” said Seer chief and founder Omid Farokhzad in a statement.

Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day’s new task hunting up a CSO for the company isn’t stopping the industry’s dominant antiviral player from doing pipeline deals.

The big biotech today snapped up 3 preclinical antiviral programs from pharma giant Novartis, with drugs promising to treat human rhinovirus, influenza and herpes viruses. We don’t know what the upfront is, but the back end has $291 million in milestones baked in.