Phar­ma gi­ant Roche is step­ping a foot firm­ly in the tech world, putting down $1.9 bil­lion to buy a soft­ware com­pa­ny found­ed by two ex-Googlers.

Nat Turn­er

The com­pa­ny, called Flat­iron Health, is de­vel­op­ing tech for life sci­ence, aca­d­e­mics, and hos­pi­tals. Roche was al­ready a fi­nan­cial backer for the New York City-based com­pa­ny, pre­vi­ous­ly own­ing 12% of Flat­iron be­fore the buy­out. Adding up its ex­ist­ing stake, Roche is pay­ing more like $2.1 bil­lion to get its hands on the com­pa­ny.

Be­sides Roche, Flat­iron’s biggest in­vestors in­clude Al­pha­bet’s GV (for­mer­ly Google Ven­tures). The com­pa­ny was found­ed by ex-Google em­ploy­ees Nat Turn­er and Zach Wein­berg.

Flat­iron has an elec­tron­ic health record sys­tem used by on­col­o­gists that col­lects da­ta, which lat­er be­comes use­ful to drug­mak­ers.

Zach Wein­berg

This lat­est deal high­light’s Roche’s in­creas­ing in­ter­est in tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies. It’s pre­vi­ous­ly part­nered with 23andMe and Foun­da­tion Med­i­cine.

“This is an im­por­tant step in our per­son­al­ized health­care strat­e­gy for Roche, as we be­lieve that reg­u­la­to­ry-grade re­al-world ev­i­dence is a key in­gre­di­ent to ac­cel­er­ate the de­vel­op­ment of, and ac­cess to, new can­cer treat­ments,” said Roche CEO Daniel O’Day in a state­ment. “As a lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny in on­col­o­gy, Flat­iron Health is best po­si­tioned to pro­vide the tech­nol­o­gy and da­ta an­a­lyt­ics in­fra­struc­ture need­ed not on­ly for Roche, but for on­col­o­gy re­search and de­vel­op­ment ef­forts across the en­tire in­dus­try. “

Two biotechs said they got turned away by the FDA on Wednesday, in part due to pandemic-related travel restrictions.

North Carolina-based Liquidia Technologies was handed a CRL for its lead pulmonary arterial hypertension drug, citing the need for more CMC data and on-site pre-approval inspections, which the FDA hasn’t been able to conduct due to travel restrictions. The agency also deferred its decision on Revance Therapeutics’ BLA for its frown line treatment, because it needs to inspect the company’s northern California manufacturing facility. The action, Revance emphasized, was not a CRL.

Three months after Reata Pharmaceuticals suggested its Friedreich’s ataxia program omaveloxolone could be delayed, the company revealed that is indeed going to be the case.

Reata $RETA shares took a nosedive Wednesday after the biotech revealed that the FDA said supplemental data for its pivotal trial did not strengthen the case for approval. As a result, the drug is likely to need another study before the FDA takes up the case.

→ San Diego protein degradation startup Vividion Therapeutics has made a change at the top with Jeffrey Hatfield taking the helm as CEO, replacing Diego Miralles six months after Roche forked over $135 million to collaborate with Vividion on their small molecule degraders. Hatfield is chairman of the board at miRagen Therapeutics and previously held the CEO job at Zafgen and Vitae Pharmaceuticals. He also had a series of leadership roles at Bristol Myers Squibb from 1996-2004, including SVP, immunology and virology divisions.

When Shanghai’s STAR board began opening its doors to biotech, it was considered not just a rival to Nasdaq but also the stock exchange in Hong Kong. Those perceptions may take an amicable turn as China expands a mutual access program with the city.

The changes mean investors in mainland China will be able to own Hong Kong biotech chapter stocks, while those in Hong Kong — a much more internationally connected group — would have access to those listed on STAR. In effect, it turns the Shanghai market into a globally accessible exchange overnight while also broadening a key source of revenue for HKEX.