China's top regulator grants approvals to a record number of novel drugs, including multiple oncology products from domestic companies, which are increasingly shifting to innovation, supported by positive regulatory changes over the past few years.

With 46 initial public offerings in the US by drug developers so far – including recent launches by Kymera, Inhibrx and Harmony – 2020 will easily beat last year’s 50 IPOs. In follow-on offerings and VC deals, newly public Schrodinger raised $346.5m and Tango’s $50m equity financing.

News of 5AM's two latest venture funds follows the launch of Longevity Vision Fund as well as LA BioMed's and RUNLABS’ announcements that they will open new incubators in 2019. Also, Passage Bio launches with $115.5m, but the largest recent VC deal was HaiHe's $146.6m financing.

Rare disease gene therapy play Orchard added new investors in an oversubscribed Series B raising $110m and therapeutic antibody developer Allakos raised $100m in its Series B round, while Obsidian raises $49.5m for next-generation cancer cell therapies in Series A.