The private French firm’s new global head of R&D oncology spoke with Scrip about its two-pronged oncology strategy and its high hopes for the advanced glioma candidate, vorasidenib, which may improve upon Tibsovo.

Private Company Edition: Westlake Village BioPartners’ latest launch 3T Biosciences also licensed a second TCR platform from Stanford University. In other recent financings, Senda raised a $123m series C round, Orna revealed a $221m series B and CPRIT funded several cancer drug developers.

Plus deals involving Glaukos/iVeena, Daré/Hennepin Life Sciences, Prevail/Lacerta, Chugai/Noile-Immune, Horizon/Q32, EpiAxis/Peptilogics and more.

Japanese bioventure Stella Pharma is re-designing a Phase II trial for its glioma candidate Steboronine after it was determined the original primary endpoint was not robust enough to prove efficacy, a challenge faced by some others working in the difficult indication. The drug was approved for head and neck cancer in Japan in 2020 and Stella has already announced a new collaboration which may be key to moving forward.