Public Company Edition: Cancer-focused Adlai Nortye launched a concurrent initial public offering and private placement, while four other drug developers announced or completed SPAC mergers. Also, Sobi grossed $540m in a rights issue and Immunovant followed early data with a $450m FOPO.

Chinese vaccine developer Beijing Health Guard Biotechnology is seeking to go public on the newly minted Beijing Stock Exchange, against a backdrop of very few biotechs having tried this route to reach public investors.

China opens the Beijing Stock Exchange to boost direct funding for innovation-driven small- and medium-size enterprises. But a closer look at the listings shows that biotech firms will largely miss the party.

In early October, EnteroMedics announced the preliminary results of its pivotaltrial on its vagal nerve blocking approach to obesity. The verdict: the study did not meet primary or secondary end points. This was the second neuromodulation company working in obesity (Medtronic was the first) to experience a disappointment in pivotal clinical trials after early results looked so good. Several neurostimulation companies are still targeting obesity. Should their investors be worried? Is this troubling news for the field of neuromodulation at large? Not surprisingly, executives from two neurostimulation companies--IntraPace and Leptos Biomedical--answer the questions simply: no and no.