The sea­soned crew at Ja­co­bio has raised $174.1 mil­lion on its HKEX de­but, fu­elling a pipeline an­chored by two Ab­b­Vie-part­nered al­losteric SHP2 in­hibitors.

It’s sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than what the biotech was ru­mored to be seek­ing back in Au­gust — Bloomberg’s sources said it could be as much as $400 mil­lion — but Qim­ing, which has backed the biotech since its Se­ries A, was hap­py about how it went from found­ing to IPO in just five years. At 12.34%, Qim­ing owned the largest chunk of stock in Ja­co­bio.

Yinx­i­ang Wang

Ja­co­bio has po­si­tioned it­self firm­ly with­in an emerg­ing group of Chi­nese up­starts with the lofty am­bi­tion to on­ly de­vel­op in-house drugs that are first-in-class across the globe. That means no in-li­cens­ing and no me-too or me-bet­ter prod­ucts — the two strate­gies that many of its bet­ter-known coun­ter­parts were built on.

The top team com­pris­es CEO Yinx­i­ang Wang, R&D chief Shao­jing Hu and pres­i­dent of ad­min­is­tra­tion Jiessie Wang. The trio worked to­geth­er at Bet­ta Phar­ma, a Shen­zhen-list­ed biotech that de­vel­oped and now mar­kets an epi­der­mal growth fac­tor re­cep­tor in­hibitor called ico­tinib.

Like much of the in­dus­try, though, can­cer and au­toim­mune dis­ease loom large in the port­fo­lio, with an ad­di­tion­al fo­cus on in­fec­tious dis­eases. To full flesh out the treat­ments, Ja­co­bio has set up a sub­sidiary and a joint ven­ture.

Aside from the SHP2 drugs, there’s al­so JAB-3068, which in­hibits an en­zyme be­lieved to play a role in sev­er­al blood can­cers called PTPN11. The idea is that it can work down­stream for PD-1 check­points and lift im­muno­sup­pres­sion in the tu­mor mi­croen­vi­ron­ment.

Oth­er in­vestors in­clude Hill­house, Lil­ly Asia Ven­tures and Tai­wan’s Cen­ter Lab­o­ra­to­ries.

David Livingston, the Dana-Farber/Harvard Med scientist who helped shine a light on some of the key molecular drivers of breast and ovarian cancer, died unexpectedly last Sunday.

One of the senior leaders at Dana-Farber during his nearly half century of work there, Livingston was credited with shedding light on the genes that regulate cell growth, with insights into inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations that helped lay the scientific foundation for targeted therapies and earlier detection that have transformed the field.

Three Senate Democrats are backing an FDA plan to require mandatory prescriber education for opioids as overdose deaths have risen sharply over the past decade, with almost 97,000 American opioid-related overdose deaths in the past year alone.

While acknowledging a decline in overall opioid analgesic dispensing in recent years, the FDA said it’s reconsidering the need for mandatory prescriber training through a REMS given the current situation with overdoses, and is seeking input on the aspects of the opioid crisis that mandatory training could potentially mitigate.

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It took seven months from exiting “quiet mode” for Ventyx Biosciences to land its very own stock ticker, raising $165 million in venture funds along the way.

Now, after pricing a massive $151.5 million IPO, the Encinitas, CA-based biotech is gunning for Phase II.

Ventyx priced close to 9.5 million shares at $16 apiece on Wednesday, the midpoint of its $15 to $17 range. CEO Raju Mohan filed the S-1 papers at the end of September, just over a week after unveiling a $114 million Series B round. He penciled in the standard figure of $100 million at first, likely knowing that in the last year, it’s been common for biotechs to raise much more than those initial estimates.

Just as Avoro Capital’s campaign to derail Merck’s proposed $11.5 billion buyout of Acceleron gains steam, Bristol Myers Squibb is leaning in with some hefty counterweight.

The pharma giant is planning to tender its Acceleron shares, Bloomberg reported, which add up to a sizable 11.5% stake. Based on the offer price, the sale would net Bristol Myers around $1.3 billion.

To complete its deal, Merck needs a majority of shareholders to agree to sell their shares.