The start of 2026 has shaped up as an ex­ten­sion of the sol­id per­for­mance we tracked with Deal­For­ma’s Chris Doko­ma­ji­lar through the sec­ond half of last year. Deal­mak­ing con­tin­ued apace, ven­ture cap­i­tal is re­cov­er­ing, and Asia stayed out front as the lead­ing re­gion for li­cens­ing pacts.

Chi­nese biotechs, which seized the spot­light on deals last year, start­ed out 2026 hot­ter than ever. Phar­ma com­pa­nies ea­ger to ex­pand their pipelines have tak­en ad­van­tage of Chi­na's drug labs, which have been quick to fol­low R&D trends.

VCs, mean­while, re­grouped around lat­er-stage as­sets, chas­ing the wind­fall re­turns that shape R&D in many re­spects.

Rev­o­lu­tion Med­i­cines is cap­i­tal­iz­ing on its re­cent clin­i­cal tri­al suc­cess, putting to­geth­er the biotech in­dus­try’s largest pub­lic raise since the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

The com­pa­ny priced its stock and debt of­fer­ing at $2 bil­lion, dou­bling the amount it ex­pect­ed to raise af­ter a Phase 3 win in pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. The colos­sal fig­ure comes as the XBI, biotech’s close­ly watched in­dus­try barom­e­ter, topped $135 on Tues­day — its high­est point since the sum­mer of 2021, when pan­dem­ic-era vibes still dom­i­nat­ed.

Over the last six months, the XBI has risen 29.1%, com­pared to a 4.9% in­crease in the S&P 500. It's been pow­ered by a wave of pub­lic of­fer­ings and height­ened M&A ac­tiv­i­ty. Along with Rev­o­lu­tion, Spyre Ther­a­peu­tics and Al­lo­gene Ther­a­peu­tics al­so put to­geth­er rais­es this week, pric­ing theirs at $403 mil­lion and $175 mil­lion, re­spec­tive­ly.

Two new star­tups have be­gun test­ing their in vi­vo CAR-T ther­a­pies for au­toim­mune dis­ease in peo­ple.

Chi­na-based Im­mor­na re­cent­ly treat­ed a sys­temic scle­ro­sis pa­tient with an in vi­vo CAR-T ther­a­py, and the pa­tient’s pe­riph­er­al B cells were un­de­tectable at two weeks. It’s an ear­ly sig­nal sug­gest­ing that the ther­a­py re­moved dis­ease-caus­ing im­mune cells, but far more da­ta are need­ed to show whether the treat­ment im­proves the pa­tient’s dis­ease long-term.

Mass­a­chu­setts-based Or­na Ther­a­peu­tics, which Eli Lil­ly is buy­ing, al­so start­ed re­cruit­ing for a healthy vol­un­teer study in Aus­tralia, ac­cord­ing to a US clin­i­cal tri­als data­base.

They are the lat­est biotechs to test the up-and-com­ing modal­i­ty, af­ter Shen­zhen-based Magi­cR­NA re­port­ed re­sults in five lu­pus pa­tients last year.

In­side Bio­gen's $5.6B buy­out: CEO Chris Viehbach­er has car­ried on with di­ver­si­fy­ing Bio­gen's busi­ness be­yond its lega­cy of high-risk bets in neu­rol­o­gy. Af­ter pay­ing $7.3 bil­lion for Rea­ta in 2023, Bio­gen agreed to pay $5.6 bil­lion for Apel­lis Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and its two com­mer­cial-stage drugs. A new reg­u­la­to­ry fil­ing shows the deal came to­geth­er over near­ly two years of talks be­tween Viehbach­er, Apel­lis CEO Cedric François, and Apel­lis Chair Ger­ald Chan. A pro­longed bid­ding war wrapped up short­ly af­ter Apel­lis tried a mar­ket check in March, gaug­ing the in­ter­est lev­el of sev­en oth­er large bio­phar­mas. All de­clined to en­gage, leav­ing the two sides to ham­mer out the fi­nal deal over the next few days. Apel­lis ex­ec­u­tives stand to make a hand­some to­tal from the sale. Ac­cord­ing to the fil­ing, François will re­ceive a po­ten­tial pay­out of rough­ly $195 mil­lion, pri­mar­i­ly from cash­ing out his eq­ui­ty hold­ings. — An­drew Dunn