After 45 years as a domestic Japanese biopharmaceutical company, JCR Pharmaceuticals is expanding into global markets. The company is betting that its manufacturing strength – which helped land a COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing deal with AstraZeneca – and blood-brain barrier crossing J-Brain Cargo technology will lead to success in Western markets.   

Public Company Edition: US initial public offerings are reawakening from a brief nap as Prometheus and Longboard prepare IPOs for launch. Also, Halozyme sells $700m worth of notes and Karuna’s $250m stock sale leads recent follow-on offerings.

Around 100 executives highlight the hot areas to watch on the R&D front in 2021. From cancer to CNS and from regenerative medicine to real world data, expectations are high on many fronts.

Although its 300-patient, Phase III trial is not likely to reduce mortality, Australian firm says the full dataset may show potential for off-the-shelf cell therapy in acute respiratory distress syndrome.