SparingVision has raised €44.5 million ($52.5 million) to develop its mutation-agnostic gene therapy treatment for retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The financing positions SparingVision to fund clinical trials of an AAV gene therapy that could stop vision deterioration in the 2 million RP patients.

On the heels of a merger and $60 million private offering, immuno-oncology biotech Compass Therapeutics is looking to go public. It filed to raise up to $50 million in its Nasdaq debut.

After snapping up contract research organization Covance for $6.5 billion five years ago, LabCorp is now looking to change the makeup of its drug development business.

Two more phase 3 trials of Merck’s challenger to Pfizer’s Prevnar 13 have met their immunogenicity endpoints. The results suggest the V114 vaccine provides broader protection from pneumococcal bacteria than Prevnar 13 does, positioning Merck to muscle in on Pfizer’s turf.

DUBLIN— Inflection Biosciences Ltd, a company developing innovative therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, today announced the appointment of industry veteran Gregory I. Berk, MD, to its Board of Directors. Dr. Berk, brings over 30 years of experience in medicine, industry and academia, with extensive expertise in oncology drug development and regulatory strategy.

BURLINGAME, Calif.— Genesis Therapeutics, a privately-held company inventing and deploying state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to augment drug discovery and development, today announced that it has entered into a multi-target collaboration agreement with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. The collaboration leverages Genesis’ graph machine learning and drug discovery expertise to identify innovative drug candidates for therapeutic targets in multiple disease areas. Genesis will receive an upfront payment and is eligible to receive pre-clinical, clinical and regulatory milestone payments, as well as future royalties on Genentech’s sales of approved drugs resulting from the collaboration.

It’s been a good year for Intellia: One of its founders, Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., nabbed the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her CRISPR research.

Chris Nowers has joined natural killer (NK) cell therapy startup ONK Therapeutics as CEO. ONK disclosed the appointment of Nowers, the former head of Kite Pharma’s European operation, alongside news of an $8 million financing round.

Galapagos and Servier’s GLPG1972 has failed to improve outcomes in knee osteoarthritis patients in a phase 2 clinical trial. The failure of the ADAMTS-5 inhibitor is a setback for Galapagos’ efforts to expand its opportunities beyond its faltering JAK1 inhibitor filgotinib.

2020 is turning out to be a big year for Praxis Precision Medicines. After launching in May with $100 million, the CNS-focused biotech wasted no time topping up its coffers with another $110 million. Now, it’s pulled off a $190 million IPO, upgrading from the $100 million listing it originally sought in September and the revised goal of $175 it set on Thursday.