Af­ter its IPO al­most two and a half years ago, a Cal­i­for­nia biotech is gath­er­ing up more fi­nanc­ing.

Tar­get­ed on­col­o­gy biotech Rev­o­lu­tion Med­i­cines put out word Tues­day that it opened up an un­der­writ­ten pub­lic of­fer­ing, orig­i­nal­ly slat­ed to be worth $200 mil­lion be­fore up­siz­ing it to $230 mil­lion. It is of­fer­ing 11.5 mil­lion shares at $20 apiece. The of­fer­ing is ex­pect­ed to close Fri­day.

In­vestors didn’t re­act too warm­ly to the news as the biotech’s stock price $RVMD opened Wednes­day down 14%, but has re­bound­ed slight­ly af­ter the morn­ing bell. Rev­o­lu­tion did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to re­quests for com­ment from End­points News. The biotech orig­i­nal­ly raised $238 mil­lion when it went pub­lic via IPO in ear­ly 2020, de­but­ing at a $17 share price.

The com­pa­ny’s fo­cus has been in RAS-ad­dict­ed can­cers, a type of mu­ta­tion that uti­lizes the RAS sig­nal­ing path­way. A year af­ter the Third Rock start­up shed its an­ti­fun­gal roots and moved in­to on­col­o­gy in 2017, the biotech wooed Sanofi in­to a $500 mil­lion deal on its first can­cer pro­gram — an SHP2 in­hibitor that is cur­rent­ly in Phase II clin­i­cal tri­als. That same year, Rev­o­lu­tion picked up Warp Dri­ve Bio’s pipeline af­ter that com­pa­ny de­cid­ed to end op­er­a­tions six years af­ter de­but­ing in 2012.

Be­yond the SHP2 in­hibitor in Rev­o­lu­tion’s pipeline, most of its RAS-fo­cused drug can­di­dates are still in the IND-en­abling stage or in pre­clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. Those can­di­dates are go­ing af­ter RAS tar­gets in­clud­ing RAS mul­ti, KRAS G12C, KRAS G12D, KRAS G13C and more. The can­di­date for RAS mul­ti, known as RMC-6236, has just start­ed in a Phase I/Ib clin­i­cal tri­al late last month, ac­cord­ing to a com­pa­ny state­ment.

In the RAS can­cer space, Am­gen and Mi­rati had demon­strat­ed ear­ly suc­cess years ago in drug­ging KRAS by go­ing af­ter a tar­get in the G12C vari­ant — with Am­gen edg­ing past Mi­rati in a win last year with the FDA’s first KRAS ap­proval of so­tora­sib, now mar­ket­ed as Lumakras.

When gene editing exploded onto the scene over three decades ago, it brought previously inconceivable disease treatment and potentially curative therapies into view. Today, gene editing remains one of the most gripping topics in biopharma — and a recent wave of partnerships may move the industry even closer to broad, curative treatment for genetic disease.

Discoveries across the natural environment deriving in vivo and ex vivo biotechnologies have ushered a floodgate of development possibilities. With giants like Bayer, Moderna, Vertex and others signaling that gene editing will be a key driver of their future pipelines, how will the industry leverage this new frontier of genomic technology?

Roche CEO Severin Schwan will be moving to the board chairman role in a few months, making room for Thomas Schinecker — the current chief of the diagnostics division — to take the helm of the Swiss pharma conglomerate.

The changeover will take place at the company’s annual general meeting in March as Christoph Franz, chairman since 2014, decided not to seek re-election to the board.

The shuffle at the top comes as Roche has steadily beefed up its early-stage pipeline while vigilantly guarding its position as one of the top drugmakers around the world. By Evaluate’s estimate, it is set to rank second on the list of largest pharmas by 2028, falling just a tad behind AbbVie.

Unlock this story instantly and join 146,000+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

With demand rising for Bavarian Nordic’s smallpox vaccine, European officials have given the thumbs up to expand the label to include monkeypox.

Imvanex, marketed as Jynneos in the US, has been approved in Europe to treat smallpox since 2013. On Friday, the EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended adding a monkeypox indication to the label, as global cases surge past 15,000. The label expansion still needs to be approved by the European Commission before it’s official.

How does a cancer drug cross the FDA finish line 3-5 months before its PDUFA date? That’s where the Real-Time Oncology Review comes in.

For the last five years, FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence under Rick Pazdur has been quietly tapped into RTOR to allow sponsors to provide even earlier, segmented submissions of critical efficacy and safety data, thereby enabling these faster evaluations of applications.

After Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn’s first major knee surgery in 2013, she couldn’t sleep. That was the beginning of a cycle of more injuries, added anxiety and stress snowballing into an eventual diagnosis of insomnia.

Now Vonn’s teaming up with Idorsia Pharmaceuticals on its sleep drug Quvivic as its newest celebrity patient ambassador. Vonn appeared in media interviews this week, including on the Today Show and People magazine, talking about her struggles with sleep, along with overall mental health issues.

Lonza’s recent building spree and contracts have the manufacturer looking positive as it enters the second half of the year.

According to Lonza’s financial report for H1, which was released on Friday, the Swiss manufacturer posted sales of CHF 3 billion, or $3.1 billion, granting them a total of 16.8% growth in sales.

The first half’s core EBIDTA for Lonza also rose 33.1% according to the company. The company is still targeting low to mid-teen sales and EBIDTA growth for the year.

The room was packed and electric. That’s how it felt hosting an event in person for Endpoints News readers last month in San Diego.

It exceeded all our expectations, which wasn’t a given, with the pandemic changing the nature of live events. We hadn’t done one in over two years. And Endpoints grew a lot during that time. We quickly built a serious virtual events platform and developed big audiences around those online channels. But there’s nothing quite like being with your colleagues at a live event. Endpoints has a tradition of convening our audience of biopharma pros in major hubs worldwide since our start in 2016. And we’re thrilled to jump right back in.

A California developer is following up on one of the hottest trends in biotech, taking out a loan to extend its operating runway while the biotech sector takes a beating on Nasdaq.

Vaccine outfit Gritstone bio put out word Thursday that it entered into an $80 million credit facility with Hercules Capital and Silicon Valley Bank. The facility, a type of loan, breaks down in the following: $20 million drawn by Gritstone at closing, with another $10 million available to withdraw by March 15, 2023. The remaining $50 million will become available in tranches through June 15, 2024 as Gritstone achieves certain, unspecified milestones.

VistaGen Therapeutics’ social anxiety drug flopped in a Phase III trial, the company announced Friday, adding to its list of programs that haven’t panned out.

The trial, which enrolled 209 patients according to clinicaltrials.gov, did not significantly change patient-reported anxiety levels compared to placebo. In the trial, patients diagnosed with social anxiety disorder took either VistaGen’s drug, PH94B, or a placebo, and then were challenged with a five-minute public speaking trial, during which they were asked to rate their anxiety.

Unlock this story instantly and join 146,000+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Bioscience & Technology Business Center The University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas

If you're already an Endpoints subscriber, enter your email below for a magic link that lets you log in quickly without using a password. Please note the magic link is one-time use only and expires after 24 hours.

We'll e-mail you a link to set a new password. Please note this link is one-time use only and is valid for only 24 hours.

ENDPOINTS NEWS Daily at 11:30 AM ET

EARLY EDITION Daily at 7:15 AM ET

ENDPOINTS PHARMA Daily at 2 PM ET

ENDPOINTS MARKETING RX Tue at 2 PM ET

ENDPOINTS FDA+ Wed at 2 PM ET

ENDPOINTS MANUFACTURING Thu at 2 PM ET

ENDPOINTS WEEKLY Sat at 6 AM ET