Yet an­oth­er biotech will hit Nas­daq on Fri­day, and this one marks a mile­stone for 2020.

Cam­bridge, MA-based Kymera has priced its IPO, an­nounc­ing a pub­lic price of $20 per share and $173.7 mil­lion raise. That’s up­sized from an ini­tial range of $16 to $18 per share, and would give the com­pa­ny a mar­ket val­ue north of $900 mil­lion.

The an­nounce­ment marks the 48th biotech IPO to go pub­lic this year, sur­pass­ing the to­tal from all of 2019, ac­cord­ing to in­vest­ment an­a­lyst Brad Lon­car. Kymera’s tick­er will be $KYMR.

Launch­ing from stealth mode out of an At­las-backed in­cu­ba­tor in 2017, Kymera has been at or near the fore­front of pro­tein degra­da­tion R&D, join­ing oth­er pi­o­neers C4 Ther­a­peu­tics, Arv­inas and Nurix. Kymera has marched for­ward steadi­ly since then, nab­bing $102 mil­lion in a Se­ries C back in March and agree­ing to a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Sanofi in Ju­ly po­ten­tial­ly worth more than $2 bil­lion.

The biotech is fo­cus­ing re­search on a trio of lead pro­grams de­signed to de­grade IRAK4, IRAKIMiD and STAT3, re­spec­tive­ly. IRAK4 was the star of the Sanofi pact, a tar­get that sits down­stream of “one of the most val­i­dat­ed path­ways in in­nate im­mu­ni­ty,” Kymera CEO Nel­lo Main­olfi pre­vi­ous­ly told End­points News, re­fer­ring to where the IL-1 cy­tokine fam­i­ly and toll-like re­cep­tor sig­nal­ing con­verges.

Pro­ceeds from Fri­day’s IPO are ex­pect­ed to fund the de­vel­op­ment of not on­ly the IRAK4 pro­gram, dubbed KT-474, but the oth­er lead stud­ies through the end of Phase I. Kymera is ex­pect­ed to file its first IND for KT-474 some­time in the first half of 2021, with fil­ings for the oth­er two com­ing lat­er in the year.

Kymera is like­ly look­ing to be­come the sec­ond biotech to bring a pro­tein degra­da­tion pro­gram in­to the clin­ic, af­ter Arv­inas’ pro­tein de­grad­er, an an­dro­gen re­cep­tor-tar­get­ing drug for prostate can­cer, reached hu­man test­ing in 2019. Nurix and C4 Ther­a­peu­tics have not be­gun any clin­i­cal stud­ies yet ei­ther, though the duo have inked col­lab­o­ra­tions with Gilead and Roche, re­spec­tive­ly.

While its pro­tein degra­da­tion com­peti­tors have fo­cused main­ly on can­cers, Kymera has branched out in­to in­flam­ma­to­ry and au­toim­mune dis­eases, as well as fi­bro­sis. The com­pa­ny pro­filed about 600 E3 lig­as­es with its plat­form, at­tract­ing both Sanofi and Ver­tex to sign col­lab­o­ra­tion deals.

Sanofi is like­ly aim­ing to find a suc­ces­sor to its block­buster drug Dupix­ent, and hopes they have found an­oth­er di­a­mond in the rough in KT-474. As part of the agree­ment, the French phar­ma would take the lead on Phase II test­ing once Kymera fin­ish­es first-in-hu­man test­ing.

The US Solicitor General is calling on the Supreme Court to take up a fiercely debated case that could have a chilling effect on generic drug companies’ willingness to bring their copycats to market under so-called “skinny” labels, meaning the generic can only be approved for some of the reference product’s indications.

The case in question relates to GSK’s win over Teva in a long-running battle over the generic giant’s skinny label for GSK’s beta-blocker Coreg (carvedilol). At the time in 2007, Teva’s generic label first included two of the three Coreg indications, but Teva did not initially win approval for the third indication for congestive heart failure.

The German life science group Sartorius will be picking up French contract manufacturer Polyplus for the price of €2.4 billion, or $2.6 billion.

On Friday, Sartorius announced the acquisition through its French subgroup, Sartorius Stedim Biotech, which will be acquiring Polyplus from private investors Archimed and WP GG Holdings IV. Polyplus has 270 employees and produces materials and components that go into making viral vectors that are used in cell and gene therapies. This includes DNA/RNA reagents as well as plasmid DNA. Polyplus has locations in France, Belgium, China and the US.

Sarissa Capital gained another foothold in its takeover of Amarin with the departure of the Irish drugmaker’s CEO.

Amarin revealed Friday in an SEC filing that Karim Mikhail resigned as president and CEO earlier this week. However, there’s still an ongoing dispute between Mikhail and Amarin, with the now ex-CEO insisting that he has a claim to severance as a result of his resignation. However, Amarin says it disagrees and plans to dispute that claim.

The NIH provided billions of dollars over a decade to foreign companies for research projects that use animals — and the US Government Accountability Office thinks the NIH needs to strengthen its oversight of those sites to ensure the animals’ welfare.

In a report released Thursday based on an investigation requested by Congress, the GAO recommended that the NIH conduct site visits and require third-party verification of the annual reports submitted by the companies in order to “provide reasonable assurance that award recipients’ annual self-reported project information is reliable and adequate to ensure the humane care and use of laboratory animals.”