It’s been a big day for Jun­shi Bio­sciences as it nabs Chi­na’s first snap ap­proval for a home­grown PD-1 af­ter re­port­ed­ly clos­ing a $394 mil­lion IPO in Hong Kong.

Con­di­tion­al­ly ap­proved un­der pri­or­i­ty re­view, tori­pal­imab is in­di­cat­ed for fast-grow­ing cas­es of melanoma, ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Med­ical Prod­ucts Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“Clin­i­cal tri­al re­sults of this prod­uct shows that in treat­ing pa­tients with un­re­sectable or metasta­t­ic melanoma who have failed pre­vi­ous sys­temic ther­a­pies, it reach­es an ob­jec­tive re­sponse rate of 17.3%, dis­ease con­trol rate of 57.5%, and 1-year sur­vival rate of 69.3%,” the NM­PA writes in a note. “The prod­uct’s mar­ket­ing ap­proval has a pos­i­tive im­pact on the se­lec­tion of clin­i­cal drugs for can­cer pa­tients.”

With 68 check­points crowd­ing the pipeline, this is like­ly to be first of many OKs from Chi­na’s rapid­ly evolv­ing reg­u­la­to­ry agency. Da­ta provider Pharm­Cube pre­vi­ous­ly told End­points News that In­novent Bi­o­log­ics, BeiGene (Cel­gene’s part­ner) and Jiang­su Hen­grui are all be­ing tipped for a mar­ket launch in the first half of 2019.

The ap­proval, which took nine months to process and tech­ni­cal­ly goes to Jun­shi’s sub­sidiary TopAl­liance, fol­lows those of Op­di­vo and Keytru­da, the two pi­o­neers in the field that’s been dom­i­nat­ing sales glob­al­ly.

While the ma­jor­i­ty of Jun­shi’s IPO pro­ceeds will go to­ward the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of PD-1, parts will fund its oth­er pro­grams, in­clud­ing a PC­SK9 drug and a Hu­mi­ra biosim­i­lar, ac­cord­ing to an ear­li­er fil­ing.

Pric­ing at the bot­tom of the range, Jun­shi are sell­ing their shares at $2.48 (HK$19.38) each, Reuters re­port­ed. It’s set to be­gin trad­ing on De­cem­ber 24.

CI­CC is the sole spon­sor for the float while Cred­it Su­isse acts as a joint bookrun­ner.

The breakthrough therapy designation Pfizer and Merck KGaA notched for Bavencio in bladder cancer has quickly paved way for a full approval.

The PD-L1 drug is now sanctioned as a first-line maintenance treatment for patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma, applicable in cases where cancer hasn’t progressed after platinum-containing chemotherapy.

Petros Grivas, the principal investigator of the supporting Phase III JAVELIN Bladder 100, called the approval “one of the most significant advances in the treatment paradigm in this setting in 30 years.”

Merck has notched an approval for using Keytruda to treat a biomarker-based subset of first-line colorectal cancer patients with unresectable or metastatic tumors, as the pharma giant continues to find new niches for its blockbuster PD-1 star.

The OK is significant in a number of ways. Not only does it build on an accelerated approval for all tumors characterized as microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient (dMMR); it also marks the first single treatment for colorectal cancer that doesn’t contain chemotherapy.

Now that Boehringer Ingelheim’s bet on contract manufacturing in China has paid off, the German drugmaker is anteing up more to get into the research game.

Boehringer has set aside $507.9 million (€451 million) for a new External Innovation Hub to be built in Shanghai over five years. The site will become one of its “strategic pillars” as the team strives to get 71 approvals — either for new products or indications — by 2030, said Felix Gutsche, president and CEO of Boehringer Ingelheim China.

Novartis has reached another large settlement to resolve misconduct allegations, agreeing to pay more than $678 million to settle claims that it had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lavish dinners, so-called speaking fees and expensive alcohol “that were nothing more than bribes” to get doctors to prescribe Novartis medications.

The top-shelf alcohol and lavish meals included a $3,250 per person night at Nobu in Dallas, a $672-per person dinner at Washington DC’s Smith & Wollensky and a $314 per person meal at Sushi Roku in Pasadena, according to the Justice Department complaint. There were at least 7 trips to Hooters and fishing trips in Alaska and off the Florida coast. Each of these events were supposed to be “speaker programs” where doctors educated other doctors on a drug, but the DOJ alleged many were “bogus” wine-and-dine events where the drug was barely mentioned, if at all.  (“Nobody presented slides on the fishing trips,” the complaint says.)