Emerging Company Profile: Danish group Vesper Bio is advancing an oral sortilin inhibitor in frontotemporal dementia, and is aiming to get to market in a similar timeframe to its much larger rivals.

Six new breakthrough therapy designations have been announced, all for novel agents, but approvals were fewer and limited to new indications and formulations.

Public Company Edition: CG Oncology grossed $380m in the first biopharma IPO in the US in 2024. Follow-on offerings have been robust recently, with Edgewise and Immatics grossing $240m and $175m, respectively. 

Private Company Edition: Playground’s third fund has $410m for tech, including biotech, Pivotal Life Sciences closed its second fund with $389m and Chugai will invest $200m through its new fund. Also, Tome launched with $213m, Sudo raised a $116m series B and Odyssey closed a $101m in series C.