Sin­ga­pore-based drug­mak­er Aslan Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals priced its IPO to­day way un­der Wall Street’s ex­pec­ta­tions, bring­ing in a lit­tle more than half the tar­get haul it an­nounced in March.

The com­pa­ny raised $42 mil­lion in the pub­lic of­fer­ing Fri­day, a far cry from the $86 mil­lion it first set in­ten­tions for in a SEC fil­ing just six weeks pri­or. It of­fered 6 mil­lion shares at $7.03, list­ing on the Nas­daq un­der the tick­er $ASLN. Aslan’s stock dropped pret­ty im­me­di­ate­ly, sink­ing as low as 26% this morn­ing to $5.28 per share. Al­though it’s climb­ing up as the hours tick by, the stock is still trad­ing at about 18% be­low open as of press time.

Carl Firth

With a lead on­col­o­gy drug in a piv­otal study for bil­iary tract can­cer and a slate of key cat­a­lysts com­ing up in oth­er tri­als, Aslan plans to use the pro­ceeds to push for­ward its pipeline. Helmed by Carl Firth — the for­mer BD chief for As­traZeneca in Asia who owns 4.7% of the stock — Aslan has a glob­al strat­e­gy to roll out its can­cer drugs in Chi­na, the US, and Eu­rope. The lead prod­uct can­di­date is var­l­i­tinib, a pan-HER drug that is al­so in the clin­ic for gas­tric, breast and col­orec­tal can­cers.

Biotech is one of the smartest, best educated industries on the planet. PhDs abound. We’ve had a long enough track record to see a new generation of savvy, experienced execs coming together to run startups.

And in these times, they are being tested as never before.

Biotech is going through quite a rough patch right now. For 2 years, practically anyone with a decent resume and some half-baked ideas on biotech could start a company and get it funded. The pandemic made it easy in many ways to pull off an IPO, with traditional road shows shut down in exchange for a series of quick Zoom meetings. Generalist investors flocked as the numbers raised soared into the stratosphere.

While calls to diversify clinical trials have grown louder in recent years — gaining support from federal agencies such as the FDA and NIH — progress has largely stalled, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Swaths of patients in racial and ethnic minority groups, as well as LGBTQIA+, pregnant and older adult populations continue to be left out of clinical trials. While some advances have been made in the last 30 years — women now account for roughly half of clinical trial participants — growth in other areas remains stagnant, according to the report, which was mandated by Congress and sponsored by the NIH.

It seems that smallpox vaccination production is weighing on the mind of the US government. And manufacturer Bavarian Nordic is the latest company to benefit.

Just a few days after Emergent, a company that has made government contracts its lifeblood, acquired the exclusive rights to Tembexa from Chimerix, with a $225 million cash payment and an expected BARDA contract, the agency has offered a contract for smallpox vaccine production.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday offered a rare show of bipartisan support for a bill that would provide the FDA with user fees for the next five years.

The committee voted 55-0 to advance the quinquennial user fee bill to the full House floor, which if approved, will allow the FDA to use biopharma funds to hire new reviewers, and hit new marks as outlined in the user fee deals that the FDA and biopharma companies forged over the past several years.

The Senate last week voted along party lines, 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaker, to make President Biden appointee Alvaro Bedoya the deciding vote on a split 2-2 Federal Trade Commission.

The addition of Bedoya to the FTC could not only spell more trouble for biopharma M&A activity, as he may align with his Democrat partners to break the FTC ties, but it may also mean that FTC Chair Lina Khan has what she needs to move forward on a study around the pharma middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers.

The story of Henrietta Lacks’ immortal cell line and her family’s fight for justice caught the attention of national media outlets and Hollywood years ago. Now, the case faces an uncertain fate as a Baltimore federal judge considers tossing the case.

After a hearing on Tuesday, Judge Deborah Boardman is weighing Thermo Fisher’s motion to dismiss the claims against it on the grounds that the statute of limitations has passed, and the continuing harm doctrine does not apply. Boardman is grappling with the “extraordinarily unique facts” of the case, according to Maryland Matters, which first reported the news.