Six new drugs including Luxturna will be price-listed in Japan on 30 August, with the Novartis gene therapy set to become the second-most expensive therapeutic product in the country. Behind another round of market expansion-related price cuts for selected drugs, discussions on possible changes to the repricing system are ongoing.

Mersana signs its third ADC partnership with big pharmas for the year with Merck agreement. Lilly expands its RNA editing partnership with ProQR, which now has the potential to earn an additional $2.5bn. Novartis continues its divestment efforts in deals with Harrow, Erasca.

Private Company Edition: The global accelerator has new commitments from HHS and the Wellcome Trust. Also, Apollo buys into Sofinnova Partners with an up to €1bn investment, Castle Creek raised $124.6m in private funding this year in lieu of an IPO and Remix closed a $70m series B round. 

Licensing deals and partnerships carried the day during another hectic J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. Pfizer racked up its third deal of the week in a cancer collaboration with Dren Bio.