Jan. 19 Quick Takes: Average price cuts of 60% for new listings on China’s NRDL

Newly admitted drugs to China’s National Reimbursement Drug List had an average price cut of 60.1% — shy of the 61.7% average cut in the last round of negotiations in 2021, but much steeper than 2020’s average of nearly 51%. A total of 111 drugs were added to China’s National Reimbursement Drug List, with three removed. Of the 147 drugs not on the NRDL and those up for renewal that participated in negotiation, 121, or 82%, made the list. The new list includes 2,967 drugs, including 1,586 from the West.

Less than two weeks after Editas Medicine Inc. (NASDAQ:EDIT) announced plans to drop its preclinical iPSC-derived NK cell programs, the company disclosed that the induced NK (iNK) cell franchise, and the related gene editing technology, will be acquired by Shoreline Biosciences Inc. Through the deal, Shoreline gains an exclusive license to a gene editing knock-in technology for use in iNK cells and iPSC-derived macrophage cell therapies for cancer, and on a non-exclusive basis for the macrophage cell therapies in other indications. Shoreline also gains a non-exclusive license to the engineered AsCas12a enzyme for gene editing from Editas, plus preclinical NK cell candidate EDIT-202 and an additional iNK cell program. Financial terms were not disclosed...