Aspen has underlined previously its commitment to building on its business in China, and now it has done so, picking up Sandoz’s local operations for up to €92.6m, while bringing in cash by offloading a quartet of anesthetics in Europe back to the firm.

The Swiss pharma sees the acquisition as the ‘backbone’ for its future cardiometabolic portfolio, which could include a combination with a muscle-building therapy.

Nucleic acid-based therapies are poised to revolutionize medicine – just as antibodies did thirty years ago.

Starting off with MSD as an anchor partner, Aurobindo plans to eventually spar with the likes of WuXi and Lonza while building scale for its biologics CDMO business. Meanwhile, EMA approval for a greenfield project in China and an US FDA nod for Ryzneuta, licensed from Yifan’s Evive Biotech, signal a boost.