With its cash re­serves shrink­ing and its stock stuck in pen­ny stock ter­ri­to­ry, tiny Si­en­na Bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals is bring­ing in Cowen to ex­plore what kind of fi­nan­cial and strate­gic al­ter­na­tives it can drum up at this point. And that event is point­ing shares south again.

Fred­er­ick Bed­ding­field Si­en­na

Si­en­na needs to raise cash to pay for a planned Phase III piv­otal of their new lead drug SNA-120, a Tr­kA in­hibitor for pso­ri­a­sis, which the biotech says won’t get start­ed with­out the mon­ey to pay for it.

Si­en­na raised $65 mil­lion from its IPO a few years ago, pric­ing at $15 a share. The stock $SNNA lat­er climbed, but then crashed on clin­i­cal fail­ure. Two stud­ies for its lead ac­ne drug failed a year ago, dis­ap­point­ing in­vestors and leav­ing the stock at 85 cents at the Fri­day close.

The stock quick­ly lost 11% on the news Mon­day.

“These da­ta are clear and un­am­bigu­ous,” CEO Fred­er­ick Bed­ding­field said at the time of the set­back. In­vestors haven’t been quick to for­give.

Following the Supreme Court’s historic decision on Friday to overturn Americans’ constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years, Attorney General Merrick Garland sought to somewhat reassure women that states will not be able to ban the prescription drug sometimes used for abortions.

Following the decision, the New England Journal of Medicine also published an editorial strongly condemning the reversal, saying it “serves American families poorly, putting their health, safety, finances, and futures at risk.”

GSK, newly branded and soon-to-be demerged, shared interim results from its Phase II trial on its chronic hepatitis B treatment, one that it says has the “potential to lead to a functional cure.”

At a presentation at the EASL International Liver Congress, GSK shared that in around 450 patients who received its hep B drug bepirovirsen for 24 weeks, just under 30% had hepatitis B surface antigen and viral DNA levels that were too low to detect.

Sometimes, being late can give you an advantage.

That’s what Sanofi and GSK are trying to say as the Big Pharma partners report positive results from a late-stage trial of their next-gen bivalent Covid-19 vaccine, which was designed to protect against both the original strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the Beta variant. Specifically, against Omicron, they note, the vaccine delivered 72% efficacy in all adults and 93.2% in those previously infected.

Despite whispers of a busy year for M&A, deal activity in the pharma space is actually down 30% on a semi-annualized basis, according to PwC’s latest report on deal activity. But don’t rule out larger deals in the second half of the year, the consultants said.

PwC pharmaceutical and life sciences consulting solutions leader Glenn Hunzinger expects to see Big Pharma companies picking up earlier stage companies to try and fill pipeline gaps ahead of a slew of big patent cliffs. Though a bear market continues to maul the biotech sector, Hunzinger said recent deals indicate that pharma companies are still paying above current trading prices.

The story of Amryt Pharma’s candidate for the genetic skin condition epidermolysis bullosa, or EB, will soon enter another chapter.

After the Irish drugmaker’s candidate, dubbed Oleogel-S10 and marketed as Filsuvez, was handed a CRL earlier this year, the company announced in a press release that it plans to submit a formal dispute resolution request for the company’s NDA for Oleogel-S10.