Seven novel agents approved in March include one accelerated approval, two rare pediatric disease priority review vouchers, two breakthrough therapy designations and one regenerative medicine advance therapy designation.

Crowded calendar could bring to an end the slow start for novel approvals in 2024, as decisions come due for Lilly’s donanemab, Merck’s sotatercept, Regeneron’s odronextamab and more.

Private Company Edition: With its lead program in the clinic, Frontier’s $80m series C round will fund trials for additional programs. Also, ORI raises $260m for second fund, Earlybird closed a €173m ($187.1m) fund, Areteia’s series A grew to $425m and Sudo’s series B increased to $147m.

More than 100 biopharma executives and experts told Scrip their predictions for therapeutic area advances in the coming year. The recent commercial success of GLP-1s in diabetes and obesity and their potential in further disease areas fuelled excitement around the metabolic space. Expectations were also positive in neurology following the launch of Leqembi for Alzheimer’s disease in 2023, while the multiple opportunities to improve cancer treatment kept oncology top of the pile overall.