The editorial team from Scrip discusses the M&A potential of various emerging biopharmas, such as Viking, Verona, Altimmune, Xenon and Crinetics.

Major Japanese companies Takeda, Astellas and SMBC are joining hands to establish a new joint venture with $3.9m capital and based in Japan’s largest biocluster Shonan iPark to help incubate local biopharma start-ups.

After getting off to a slow start last year, US biosimilar rivals to Humira are beginning to gain more traction. Sandoz is increasing its share on a weekly basis, Alvotech and Teva have struck a deal for their newly-approved interchangeable 100mg/ml biosimilar, and the latest market data shows biosimilars capturing twice as much of the market in Q1 as in Q4 2023.

Notable new drug approvals in South Korea last year included Pfizer’s Tukysa, Genentech’s Columvi and BeiGene’s Tevimbra, but the tally did not include any domestically-originated products. Alzheimer’s disease therapy lecanemab may be on the horizon this year.