Plus, news about Lundbeck, Otsuka, Jubilant Pharma, Frontier Medicines, AstraZeneca and BenevolentAI:
Zealand Pharma targets $900M raise: The Danish biotech aims to secure the funding through a private placement a week after announcing early clinical weight loss data on an amylin analog that sent its shares up about 9%. The drugmaker said the new money would support Phase 2b obesity trials and other activities. The number of shares and pricing of the offering have not yet been determined. — Kyle LaHucik
Boehringer Ingelheim ends three Ph2 trials: The drugmaker discontinued all studies of its sGC activator avenciguat in clinically significant portal hypertension. It was safe and well tolerated but it did “not meet predefined efficacy criteria compared to placebo after 8 weeks of treatment,” a spokesperson told Endpoints News on Tuesday. The drug is still being tested in Phase 2 in systemic sclerosis. The company published Phase 2 data for avenciguat in chronic kidney disease earlier this year, the spokesperson added. — Kyle LaHucik
FDA accepts submission for Lundbeck and Otsuka’s new PTSD treatment: The FDA accepted a supplemental new drug filing to combine Rexulti with sertraline to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. The PDUFA date is Feb. 8, 2025. If approved, it would be the first new PTSD treatment in more than 20 years. — Max Bayer
Jubilant Radiopharma invests $50M to expand its US footprint: Its radiopharmaceutical arm is adding six new positron emission tomography (PET) manufacturing sites across the US, bringing its total PET manufacturing network to nine facilities. The new sites are anticipated to be operational in the next two years. — Anna Brown
Frontier Medicines adds $20M to Series C: The small molecule developer announced the additional funding four months after its initial Series C of $80 million. Frontier also said it appointed Gerardo Ubaghs as CFO. The company is developing a next-generation KRAS therapy, and it hopes to report data later this year or early next year. — Lei Lei Wu
AstraZeneca selects lupus target from BenevolentAI deal: The companies first started their AI-driven drug discovery collaboration in 2019. They expanded the deal in 2022 to include heart failure and systemic lupus erythematosus, and AstraZeneca has now selected one target for each disease. — Lei Lei Wu
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include Zealand Pharma’s offering.