Plus, news about Sanofi, XGEN Ventures, Owkin and Idorsia:
Bicycle Therapeutics to raise $555M in one of the biggest PIPEs of the year: The company’s stock $BCYC was up 20% on Thursday morning after it announced the stock sale to healthcare investors, which included Deep Track Capital, EcoR1 Capital, Fairmount Capital, Forbion, Perceptive Advisors and RA Capital Management. Bicycle is set to present two posters at the upcoming ASCO meeting, which is the biggest cancer conference of the year. Abstracts are set to drop on Thursday evening. Bicycle declined to comment on whether the investors saw its ASCO data. — Lei Lei Wu
Tango Therapeutics nixes Ph1/2 cancer test: The decision followed high-grade liver function abnormalities seen in certain patients. The trial was evaluating a USP1 inhibitor called TNG348 alone and in combination with AstraZeneca’s Lynparza in patients with BRCA1/2-mutant and other homologous recombination deficient positive cancers. — Ayisha Sharma
Sanofi to advance asthma drug: The company’s rilzabrutinib program — an oral BTK inhibitor acquired in the Principia deal — showed off new results at the American Thoracic Society conference on Wednesday. In the high-dose group, the drug-induced a 36.1% relative risk reduction compared to placebo and a 25% relative risk reduction in the low-dose group. Sanofi did not conduct statistical significance analyses. The drugmaker plans to move rilzabrutinib into Phase 3 for asthma in the second half of this year. — Max Gelman
XGEN Venture touts €160M life science fund: The venture capital firm plans to use the funds to create and invest in up to 15 companies across the therapeutic, medical device, diagnostic and digital health spaces. The fund will focus on “early stage breakthrough opportunities,” with fundraising activities expected to continue through to year-end. — Ayisha Sharma
Owkin licenses Idorsia’s cancer drug: The French techbio is getting global rights to OKN4395, a dual inhibitor of the EP2 and EP4 receptors. Owkin plans to use AI to select optimal enrollment criteria for a planned Phase 1b test. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. — Ayisha Sharma