→ These days, there’s vir­tu­al­ly no raise too big for biotech. Case in point: 2 loom­ing IPOs where the ex­ec­u­tive team is sketch­ing out some mega-mon­ey that can fu­el their op­er­a­tions for some time. Avid­i­ty Bio­sciences, which has a pre­clin­i­cal pro­gram for my­oton­ic dy­s­tro­phy type 1, be­lieves it can gin up to $248 mil­lion or more now, based on the high end of their range. They’re look­ing for a mar­ket cap of around $619 mil­lion. Ge­off Mc­Do­nough at Gen­er­a­tion Bio, mean­while, has his eyes set on $218 mil­lion-plus with a top-end range of $19 a share. Gen­er­a­tion is al­so pre­clin­i­cal, some­thing that would have scared off in­vestors ear­li­er. To­day, that pro­file can be worth more than $880 mil­lion in mar­ket val­ue.

→ Plano, TX-based Rea­ta $RE­TA is get­ting a ma­jor league as­sist from the Black­stone Life Sci­ences group to get its drug bar­dox­olone over the line at the FDA and in­to the mar­ket. A busy Black­stone Life Sci­ences chief Nicholas Galakatos has inked a $350 mil­lion roy­al­ty and eq­ui­ty deal with Rea­ta on its CKD drug in Al­port syn­drome, au­to­so­mal dom­i­nant poly­cys­tic kid­ney dis­ease and oth­er con­di­tions. “Bring­ing the first po­ten­tial ther­a­py to Al­port syn­drome pa­tients, a dev­as­tat­ing ge­net­ic con­di­tion with no ap­proved treat­ments, is very mo­ti­vat­ing,” said Paris Panayiotopou­los, Black­stone Life Sci­ences se­nior man­ag­ing di­rec­tor.

→ Texas biotech CNS Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals has se­cured the FDA’s or­phan drug des­ig­na­tion for its lead ex­per­i­men­tal drug, beru­bicin, for the treat­ment of ma­lig­nant gliomas, a type of brain tu­mor. Brain can­cer is no­to­ri­ous­ly dif­fi­cult to treat, giv­en that for treat­ments to work they must sur­mount a for­mi­da­ble ob­sta­cle — the blood-brain bar­ri­er.

Roche had big plans for etrolizumab. Eyeing a hyper-competitive IBD and Crohn’s market where they have not historically been a player, the company rolled out 8 different Phase III trials, testing the antibody for two different uses across a range of different patient groups.

On Monday, Roche released results for 4 of those studies, and they mark a decided setback for both the Swiss pharma and their biotech sub Genentech, potentially spelling an end to a drug they put over half-a-decade and millions of dollars behind.

Despite the FDA putting a partial clinical hold on its lead program only a few weeks ago, Boston-based Pieris Pharmaceuticals is plowing forward with a new collaboration.

Pieris will work with Eli Lilly to further advance studies on PRS-343, a 4-1BB/HER2 bispecific for HER2-positive tumors, in combination with the latter’s ramucirumab and paclitaxel for the second-line treatment of patients with HER2-positive gastric cancer in a single-arm, Phase II study.

Dyne Therapeutics started out last April with a modest $50 million to mine targeted muscle disease therapies from its in-house conjugate technology. The biotech has now convinced more investors that it’s got gems on its hands, closing $115 million in fresh financing to push its next-gen oligonucleotide drugs into the clinic.

Vida Ventures and Surveyor Capital led the round, joined by a group of other new backers including Wellington Management Company, Logos Capital and Franklin Templeton.

The lead program for AnaptysBio’s in-house pipeline has hit another setback.

Etokimab, an IL-33 inhibitor, did not achieve statistically significant improvement in a Phase II trial for patients suffering from chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps. Researchers measured the individuals’ bilateral nasal polyps score and sino-nasal outcome test, finding that neither improved upon a placebo after both four- and eight-week time markers, though they did demonstrate improvement over baseline levels of the examinations.