Shanghai Bao Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.

Plus, news about Krystal Biotech and Curewell Capital: 🇨🇳 Two more Chinese biotechs file for IPOs in Hong Kong: LongBio Pharma and Shanghai Bao Pharmaceuticals both applied for an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Thursday. Bao has raised about $213 million to date and had about $63 million in cash and equivalents at the end of June, per the IPO filing. It’s working on treatments for cancer and bacterial infections, among other disease categories. LongBio had about $40 million in cash and equivalents at the end of June. The biotech is developing therapies for allergy and autoimmune conditions. — Kyle LaHucik 🦠 Lighthouse Pharmaceuticals gets $49.2M grant from NIH: The company plans to use the funding for a Phase 2 trial for patients with Alzheimer’s disease who have a confirmed Porphyromonas gingivalis infection. P. gingivalis is a bacterium associated with gum disease; the company said chronic infection with the bacterium can “contribute” to the progression of Alzheimer’s. — Jaimy Lee 🏛Krystal Biotech pauses advanced melanoma study: The company’s decision to pause enrollment in the Phase 1/2 study of intratumoral KB707 was reportedly due to uncertainty about the FDA’s approach to regulation, according to STAT . The regulator rejected a similar therapy from Replimune in July. Both treatments are engineered using a herpes virus. Krystal said Thursday that it is still studying an inhaled version of its therapy, called KB707, in lung cancer. — Lei Lei Wu 💵 Curewell Capital raises $535M, in part for US pharma services: The Los Angeles-based private equity company closed a fund of $535 million, which will be used to acquire US companies that do work in pharma and healthcare services, medical devices and health tech. The fund was raised less than five months after launch. — Anna Brown