Private Company Edition: The global accelerator has new commitments from HHS and the Wellcome Trust. Also, Apollo buys into Sofinnova Partners with an up to €1bn investment, Castle Creek raised $124.6m in private funding this year in lieu of an IPO and Remix closed a $70m series B round. 

NICE has issued final guidance for Imbruvica and preliminary guidance for Brukinsa, saying that while clinical evidence supports using the BTK inhibitors for WM, it is not convinced that either drug will be a cost-effective use of National Health Service resources.

Among recent highlights, SK Bioscience files for approval of recombinant protein COVID-19 vaccine GBP510, Hanmi Pharmaceutical’s Chinese subsidiary continues to report strong earnings, led by cold drug sales, while Yuhan’s novel peptide drug candidate for degenerative disc disease is set to move into a Phase III trial in the US.

Investor Deerfield Management and genomic sequencing giant Illumina entered into a five-year partnership to identify novel targets and drug candidates that may be spun out into new companies.