GlaxoSmithKline LLC

iStock, Nauval Wildani Forbion participated in the November 2025 series B round of Gate Bioscience, which earlier this week inked an up to $870 million deal extension with Eli Lilly. Forbion has raised €2.3 billion ($2.6 billion) across two funds designed to support some 30 companies, “one of the largest life sciences venture capital fundraisings globally over the last five years,” according to the biotech-focused venture capital firm. This record raise is the Dutch firm’s largest ever, the firm said in a Tuesday announcement . Forbion now has approximately €7.5 billion ($8.42 billion) worth of assets under management. The money will be deployed through two new funds called Forbion Growth Opportunities Fund IV and Forbion Ventures Fund VIII, both of which will prioritize “high-potential” drugmakers. “Forbion is therapy-area agnostic,” a company spokesperson told BioSpace via email. The firm focuses on “high-quality life sciences companies that are developing novel therapeutics in critical areas of unmet medical need, which have the potential to significantly impact the future of medicine.” Forbion Ventures Fund VIII will “build, invest in and support innovative biotechs,” particularly pre-clinical and early clinical-stage drugmakers, while the Growth Opportunities Fund IV is meant to help companies expand “by providing private growth capital, alongside select crossover and public investments,” the spokesperson added. Eli Lilly participated in Forbion’s latest raise, alongside other institutional funders such as KfW Capital, PGM and Kauffman Foundation. In October 2024, Forbion raised nearly €2.1 billion ($2.4 billion) across two funds called Growth Opportunities Fund III and Ventures Fund VII. The fund at the time didn’t specify what particular areas the money would target, but Forbion’s financing strategy has historically focused on drugmakers working on unique science. Over the years, Forbion has built a portfolio of more than 140 companies, including Gate Bioscience, which earlier this week expanded an existing agreement with Eli Lilly for up to an additional $870 million to advance therapies for targets that have historically been difficult to drug. Forbion led Gate’s oversubscribed series B raise in November 2025, which gave the biotech $65 million. Forbion’s portfolio also includes Replimune, which in August secured an accelerated approval for its melanoma immunotherapy Tudriqev after more than a year of regulatory hurdles, and RAPT Therapeutics, which was acquired by GSK for $2.2 billion in January . “Our successful fundraising gives us significant dry powder in a market characterized by a general shortage of capital,” managing partner and co-founder Sander Slootweg said in a prepared statement. “We will continue to focus on building and scaling those companies that develop the most paradigm-shifting treatments, addressing true unmet needs and delivering societal impact.” Biopharma is currently enjoying what Proximal Ventures’ Sahir Raoof in an interview with BioSpace called a “stronger financing environment” given the continued flow of venture dollars into the industry. Still, said that “capital is concentrated,” with investors preferring to bet on more advanced and de-risked assets. Forbion participated in one of Q3’s largest venture capital rounds: Solstice Oncology’s series A in September, which gave the biotech a $225 million infusion . Venture capital 5 biggest venture capital raises of Q3 2026 Venture capital continued to flow into biopharma in the third quarter, though experts pointed out that investors remained selective, preferring to put their money behind advanced and derisked assets, as well as AI-driven drugmakers. October 7, 2026 · 8 min read · Tristan Manalac Read more

Cue Biopharma's shares plunged nearly 24% Monday after reporting Phase II data for its anti-IgE antibody CUE-221 in chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) as investors seemed sceptical of the drug's apparent edge over Roche and Novartis' Xolair (omalizumab).Still, based on the data, Cue said it is advancing CUE-221 into a Phase IIb/III study in CSU and in a Phase II study in food allergy.The five-arm trial, conducted in China by Ascendant Health Sciences, enrolled 145 participants with moderate-to-severe CSU that was inadequately controlled despite treatment with H1 antihistamines. Participants were randomised to one of three doses of CUE-221 once every four weeks, placebo or Xolair.Cue said the drug hit its main goal across all three doses. At week 12, complete hive resolution as measured by Hives Severity Score over 7 days (HSS7=0) was achieved by 54%, 53% and 43% of patients at the 4 mg/kg, 2 mg/kg and 1 mg/kg doses, respectively, versus 11% for placebo (p<0.005 for the two higher doses).All three CUE-221 groups also posted numerically higher rates than the 41% seen with Xolair. The trial's primary goal was to demonstrate superiority over placebo; Xolair was included to compare efficacy, though it wasn't part of the formal statistical analysis plan.Meanwhile, complete response on the Urticaria Activity Score over 7 days (UAS7) scale, a secondary endpoint, was seen in 46% of patients at the highest dose, meeting the bar for statistical significance, versus 11% for placebo and 29% for Xolair.Staying powerAnother positive signal came after treatment stopped. CUE-221 was administered through week 16, but the rate of complete hive resolution continued to rise, reaching a peak of 69% at week 22 for patients on the 4-mg/kg dose. At week 28, or 12 weeks after the last dose, 60% of patients at the highest dose remained hive-free versus 24% for Xolair, a 36 percentage-point difference that Cue said was statistically significant in a post-hoc analysis. The 1 and 2 mg/kg arms fell to hive-free rates of 24% and 31%, respectively, over that time."Results support that the effects of CUE-221 on IgE function could result in substantial efficacy in CSU that persists for several months, even after dosing ends," said Dale Umetsu, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and former global lead for Xolair development.No treatment-related serious adverse events or cases of hypersensitivity, including anaphylaxis, were reported with CUE-221. Injection-site reactions were infrequent, with only one exceeding grade 1 severity and none leading to treatment discontinuations.A vote of confidenceDespite the negative market reaction, analysts at B. Riley Securities liked what they saw. They had two bars for success — matching Xolair's level of hives control at 12 weeks, with higher doses producing consistently better results, and showing that benefits persisted after patients stopped taking the drug — and "the symptom response endpoints cleared both," the analysts said."Lower exposures of the same molecule losing the effect, while the top dose retained it, is the threshold pattern the [Phase I] predicted and the clinical shape a CD23-sparing mechanism should produce," according to the analysts, adding that "safety was clean and leaves dosing headroom."They also pointed to some competing anti-IgE programmes — namely, LongBio Pharma's LP-003 and RAPT Therapeutics' ozureprubart (RPT904/JYB1904) — and suggested CUE-221's "three-month offdrug tail" could be a differentiator when it comes to durability. GSK acquired RAPT earlier this year for $2.2 billion.In 2025, RAPT reported that efficacy was sustained at week 16 after a single dose of its drug, whereas no follow-up has so far been reported for LP-003, according to the analysts.

iStock, z_wei GSK is consolidating its vaccine manufacturing operations to one site—located in Canada—amid the pharma’s recent $2.5 billion savings campaign. GSK is shuttering its vaccine manufacturing facility in Germany, a move that will leave some 650 employees jobless. “Following the review, we have taken a difficult decision to propose consolidating operations at one site,” a company spokesperson confirmed to BioSpace over email, referring to the pharma’s recently announced $2.5 billion savings push. The pharma has chosen to retain its Canada plant while letting go of its Dresden campus, the spokesperson said. GSK continues to expect that it “can fully match anticipated future demand in a sustainable and competitive way,” the spokesperson added. GSK’s vaccine business experienced an 8% year-on-year increase in vaccine sales in Q2. This was driven largely by its shingles shot Shingrix, which made £900 million ($1.2 billion) in the quarter, and the respiratory syncytial virus vaccine Arexvy, which surged more than 100% to hit £200 million ($270 million). In July, GSK announced a sweeping cost-cutting campaign to save $2.5 billion over the next three years, an initiative that CEO Luke Miels at the time said would “simplify the organization” and help “reallocate capital and resources” into its late-stage pipeline. Miels confirmed that the cuts would include layoffs, though the pharma hasn’t specified how many employees will be affected in all. In the weeks leading up to the announcement of the savings push, GSK took other steps to slim down. In early July, for instance, the pharma abandoned its neuro partner Alector after back-to-back disappointments, including a Phase 3 dementia fail in October 2025 and a mid-stage Alzheimer’s stumble in April. The companies first linked up in July 2021, with GSK fronting $700 million . A few weeks after cutting Alector loose, GSK pulled the plug on its chronic cough drug camlipixant, which it got from the $2 billion takeover of Bellus Health , following mixed Phase 3 data. The pharma was running the late-stage CALM-1 and CALM-2 studies for camlipixant, with the former meeting its primary goal of lowering cough frequency, while the latter detected no benefit in this metric. Both CALM trials missed key secondary endpoints. The pharma has also posted key wins of late and over the weekend reported positive Phase 3 data for its Hansoh Pharma-partnered risvutatug rezetecan, an investigational antibody-drug conjugate being tested for relapsed small cell lung cancer. And in July, GSK announced that its ROS1 blocker zidesamtinib—which it got from its $10.6 billion buyout of Nuvalent Bio—won FDA approval for certain types of advanced non-small cell lung cancer. Lung cancer Summit, BioNTech, more headline WCLC with next-gen lung cancer drugs BioNTech, Summit Therapeutics, GSK and Roche have made a splash at the ongoing World Conference on Lung Cancer taking place in South Korea. These companies and their partners have all shared new findings for their closely watched programs, highlighting overall survival benefits in various types of lung cancer. September 14, 2026 · 4 min read · Gabrielle Masson Read more