For­get the glob­al stock melt­down. Or at least Chi­nese biotech In­no­Care did, forg­ing ahead with a more than $250-mil­lion IPO in Hong Kong de­spite the ex­change be­ing in the midst of a King­da Ka-es­que freefall.

It worked. In­no­Care wrote in a fil­ing that re­tail in­vestors sub­scribed to 7.98 bil­lion shares – about 300 times the amount the num­ber of­fered to them, ac­cord­ing to the South Chi­na Morn­ing Post. With in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestors agree­ing to chip in and buy US$164 mil­lion (HK$1.28 bil­lion) of shares, the com­pa­ny will raise $289 mil­lion (HK$2.2 bil­lion). Shares priced at the high end of an HK$8.18 to HK$8.95 range.

In­no­Care’s suc­cess was like­ly dri­ven by the same forces col­laps­ing stocks around the globe. As the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic has slowed eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty around the world and dri­ven the stock mar­ket down with the speed of a bear phys­i­cal­ly tack­ling an un­sus­pect­ing bull, in­vestors have turned to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal stocks, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those com­pa­nies who have joined in on the hunt for a coro­n­avirus treat­ment or vac­cine. In­no­Care, fo­cused on can­cer and au­toim­mune dis­or­ders, is not one of those com­pa­nies, but a lo­cal VC sug­gest­ed they still like­ly ben­e­fit­ed from the fren­zy.

“I would be cau­tious on this stock since the re­sponse could be dri­ven by short term spec­u­la­tion, and half the shares are in the hands of the cor­ner­stone in­vestors,” VC As­set Man­age­ment man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Louis Tse Ming-kwong told the Post.

Jas­mine Cui

In­no­Care has 9 pro­grams aim­ing to the best or first-in-class, but the lead pro­gram — and the re­cip­i­ent of half of the IPO’s pro­ceeds — is to ore­labru­ti­nib, a BTK in­hibitor now be­ing test­ed pre­clin­i­cal­ly or in ear­ly-stage hu­man tri­als against a long list of can­cers.

By the Post’s count, In­no­Care is the 11th com­pa­ny to list un­der Hong Kong’s biotech ex­change since it de­buted 2 years ago. Many of the oth­ers came with sim­i­lar pitch­es around au­toim­mune and can­cer. Nev­er­the­less, In­no­Care stands out for its staff, with Mer­ck vet Jas­mine Cui as CEO and pres­ti­gious aca­d­e­m­ic Yigong Shi as pres­i­dent of the sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board.

In a Phase II tri­al last year, ore­labru­ti­nib led to a re­sponse rate of 89% and a 12-month pro­gres­sion free sur­vival rate of 64% in 106 re­duced/re­frac­to­ry man­tle cell pa­tients.

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

Digital therapeutics company Better Therapeutics announced on Thursday that it’s cutting 35% of its staff as it awaits FDA clearance for its first product.

The company, which launched eight years ago, is one of a growing group of companies seeking a digital alternative to traditional medicine. The space saw a record $7.5 billion in investments in 2021, according to Chris Dokomajilar at DealForma, with uses spanning ADHD, PTSD and other indications. However, private insurers have been slow to hop on board.