What's Happening in US Biotech? A Beginner's Map of 8 Big Trends and Their Korean Connections (2026-08-20)

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 10:30:00 +0900

🔗 Read together: Six Korean bio stocks, made simple: ’the catalyst is alive’ and ‘it’s cheap’ are not the same thing · Our Korea bio-sector thesis: the market that rewards under-priced data · The Real Money flow framework

In June we sorted six Korean bio names by “catalyst vs price.” This post lifts the lens one level up: what is actually happening in US biotech, and which Korean companies does that wave reach? It cross-checks 108 public sources against a full quantitative screen of Korean listed biotechs, written for beginners, with every piece of jargon unpacked and visuals throughout. It is long, but it is designed so that one read gives you the whole US biotech picture.

TL;DR (3 lines)

US biotech is up +88.8% in a year and has become a leading sector; over the past month, money has been rotating out of semiconductors into biotech. Three engines: an M&A supercycle, rate-cut hopes, and a reopened IPO window.
Two game-changing events landed on August 18 and 19. The first-ever Phase 3 success for an mRNA cancer therapy (Merck and Moderna), and lab-validated protein design by an AI (Claude, verified via Twist). The theme count went from 7 to 8.
Fewer Korean companies than you might think are connected to this wave by actual contracts. Some have both substance and momentum (Alteogen, HanAll), some have strong substance but depressed prices (LigaChem, ABL Bio), and some merely borrowed the theme. Telling those three apart is the point of this post.

Before we start: the 6 words this post keeps using

Know these and the rest reads easily.

Term	Plain meaning
XBI	An ETF holding US small/mid-cap biotechs. Think of it as the thermometer of US biotech.
Licensing-out (L/O)	Selling your drug candidate to a global pharma: an upfront payment, milestones (paid on success), and royalties.
Royalty	A percentage of sales you keep receiving every time the exported drug sells. The highest-quality income in biotech.
CDMO	A factory that makes other people’s drugs. Whether the drug succeeds or not, orders mean revenue.
Binary event	An event whose outcome is one of two (trial readout, approval decision). The stock can move tens of percent in a day.
Patent cliff	When a blockbuster’s patent expires and revenue falls off a cliff. This fear is the root engine behind biotech M&A.

Key sentence

The US biotech rally runs on structural money flows: big pharma's acquisition needs driven by the patent cliff, rate cuts, and a reopened IPO window. So the Korean investor's question should not be "US biotech is up, let's buy Korean bio," but "which Korean companies are connected to that wave by actual contracts?"

1. The big picture: money is moving from semis to biotech

Numbers first. XBI, the US biotech thermometer, is up +88.8% over the past year and +39.1% year-to-date. Isolate the last month and you get biotech +9.7% vs semiconductors −6.0%. While the chip trade that led all year takes a break, funds are rotating into biotech, and the rotation is now measurable.

One thing beginners often misread. A +88.8% print also carries a warning: much is already priced in. Anyone entering now is betting on year two of a rally, which is why this post keeps asking what is still under-priced.

2. The rally’s three engines: why biotech, why now

This rally runs on three structural engines.

The patent cliff: the real reason behind the M&A supercycle

The strongest of the three engines is M&A, and its root is the patent cliff. Keytruda (Merck), the world’s best-selling cancer drug, loses patent protection in 2028. Once a patent expires, copies flood in and revenue drops like a cliff. Big pharma revenue exposed this way through 2030 is estimated at $170B–300B.

Why this matters for Korean investors comes down to one line. In an era when big pharma must fill pipelines with money, demand for Korean biotechs’ licensing deals grows too.

3. Two days in August that changed the map

Two events between August 18 and 19 forced the theme map to be redrawn.

Event ① The first-ever Phase 3 win for an mRNA cancer therapy (8/19)

Merck and Moderna’s personalized cancer vaccine, intismeran autogene (mRNA-4157), combined with Keytruda in a Phase 3 trial of 1,137 resected stage IIB–IV melanoma patients, significantly reduced both recurrence risk (RFS, the primary endpoint) and distant-metastasis risk (DMFS, the key secondary endpoint). Across personalized neoantigen therapy and mRNA-based cancer treatment, this is the first Phase 3 success in history.

To be precise up front: this is a Phase 3 success, and approval has not been granted yet. The companies are beginning approval discussions with regulators, and the effect size (how much better, in absolute terms) stays undisclosed until the full data are presented at a conference.

It is still a big deal, because the way this drug works creates a new kind of industrial demand.

Three investment implications. ① A re-rating of Moderna itself (its pipeline option value revives), ② Merck’s acquisition appetite grows stronger because it must fill the Keytruda patent cliff (2028), ③ personalized therapy requires per-patient manufacturing, so approval would structurally lift mRNA manufacturing (CDMO) demand. That third point leads to the Korean link we cover later (ST Pharm).

Event ② An AI designed proteins, and outside labs verified it (8/18)

Anthropic announced that its AI model Claude designed de novo binder proteins for 14 of 15 targets. The lab numbers matter most here. The hit rate (the share of designed proteins that actually bound their targets) was 22~35%, roughly double the industry norm of 10~15%, and the verification was performed independently by two outside companies, Twist Bioscience and Adaptyv Bio, rather than by Anthropic itself. Twist put it in an 8-K filing and its stock jumped +17% in a day (its biggest move since 2021).

What makes this interesting is what it suggests about where the money is made in the “AI drug discovery” theme. Until now the stars were listed “AI biotechs” (e.g., Recursion). But the capability was demonstrated by an unlisted frontier AI lab, and the listed company that actually made money was the infrastructure firm that synthesizes and verifies the designs (Twist). In a gold rush, the shop selling picks and shovels earns the surest money.

A sober counterpoint belongs right next to this. Binding is not the same as being a drug (binding ≠ efficacy ≠ safety ≠ clinical success). Skeptics spoke up immediately. Until clinical value is proven, the only verifiable cash flow in this theme is tool-layer revenue (companies like Twist). And a formal commercial contract between Twist and Anthropic has not been confirmed. What exists today is verification work plus expectations.

Conflict-of-interest note: posts on this blog are written with the help of Anthropic’s AI model (Claude). In other words, the model of the company involved in the event above is writing this text. That is why this item is presented strictly alongside external verification (Twist’s 8-K, two independent labs) and skepticism, and readers should weigh this conflict when judging it.

4. The 8 US themes at a glance

With the two events included, US biotech’s leading themes settle into eight.

Theme ① Next-gen obesity
The race for "what comes after Wegovy": pills instead of injections, muscle preservation. Lilly's oral drug won FDA approval in April. Anchors: Lilly, Novo, Pfizer / small-cap VKTX

Theme ② China licensing & geopolitics
Big pharma is licensing Chinese biotech assets at scale ($137.7B in 2025, up 10x), while US legislation targeting Chinese bio firms (BIOSECURE, effective 12/18) cuts across it. Anchor: Pfizer / small-cap SMMT

Theme ③ M&A supercycle & patent cliff
$123B+ in H1, already past full-year 2025. All of US small/mid biotech trades as a "takeover call option." Anchors: Lilly, Gilead, GSK, AbbVie

Theme ④ Radioligand therapy (RLT)
'Guided-missile' therapy delivering radioactive payloads only to cancer cells. Curium–Lantheus $8.0B deal (sector record). This year's first biotech IPO was here too (Aktis, $318M). Anchor: Novartis / small-cap AKTS

Theme ⑤ CNS (brain & neuropsychiatry)
Huge unmet need (Alzheimer's psychosis etc.), but the highest clinical failure rate of any field. BMS's big readout (ADEPT) due in H2. Anchors: BMS, Lilly

Theme ⑥ Autoimmune cell therapy
Applying CAR-T (a cancer cell therapy) to autoimmune diseases like lupus. Validated by AbbVie and Gilead acquisitions. Anchors: AbbVie, Gilead / small-caps CABA, KYTX

Theme ⑦ AI drug discovery (redefined 8/18)
Value migrating from 'AI biotechs' to frontier AI labs (unlisted) plus verification/synthesis infrastructure (picks and shovels). Names: TWST (infrastructure), SDGR. No pure anchor

Theme ⑧ The mRNA renaissance (new, 8/19)
A cancer Phase 3 win plus a flu-vaccine approval: double re-validation in two weeks. Personalized manufacturing → CDMO demand. Anchors: Merck, Moderna / BNTX, the mRNA CDMO chain

ADCs (drugs made by attaching payloads to antibodies) are absorbed into ② (licensing) and ③ (M&A) as their main modality rather than standing alone. Korea’s LigaChem Bio plugs in exactly there.

One step deeper into each theme

① Next-gen obesity: the “next round” of the market Wegovy and Zepbound opened. The competitive axis is moving from injections to pills (oral) and to the quality of weight loss (muscle preservation). Lilly’s oral orforglipron won FDA approval in April, and the third-generation candidate retatrutide showed −28.3% weight loss in Phase 3. Pfizer’s $10B purchase of amylin player Metsera reset the price tag on “next-gen mechanisms.” Watch out: next-gen candidates have already failed to beat incumbents in some trials, and drug-price pressure is heavy.

② China licensing and geopolitics: big pharma’s licensing of Chinese candidates hit $137.7B in 2025, ten times the prior year. On the other side, the US completed legislation restricting business with Chinese bio firms (BIOSECURE), and the restricted-entity list takes effect December 18. The emblematic stock at this crossroads is SMMT (a PD-1×VEGF bispecific licensed from China’s Akeso), carrying a date-stamped event: the FDA decision (PDUFA) on November 14.

③ M&A supercycle: the patent-cliff chart above says it all. Companies with late-stage assets plus breakthrough designations keep getting bought.

④ Radioligand therapy (RLT): molecules that home in on markers on cancer cells, carrying radioactive isotopes. Literally guided-missile oncology. Novartis’s Pluvicto proved the commercial case, and the Curium–Lantheus $8.0B deal in early August reset sector valuations. Watch out: isotope supply bottlenecks (Ac-225) and a precedent of failing to prove survival benefit.

⑤ CNS: the biggest event is the H2 readout of ADEPT, which extends BMS’s schizophrenia drug Cobenfy into Alzheimer’s-disease psychosis. But CNS carries the highest failure base rate of any disease area, so indirect exposure through large caps like BMS beats a single-readout small cap here.

⑥ Autoimmune cell therapy: taking CAR-T (re-engineering a patient’s own immune cells) from blood cancer into autoimmune diseases like lupus. NEJM published in-vivo data (re-engineering cells inside the body), and acquisitions by AbbVie and Gilead validated the theme. It neighbors the autoimmune (FcRn) axis where Korea’s HanAll Biopharma connects.

⑦ and ⑧ are the two events described in section 3.

5. US names to watch: priorities, and the discipline behind them

Ranking the high-risk small/mid-cap (“high-beta”) names on four criteria gives this order. For beginners, the criteria matter more than the tickers: ⓐ clarity and proximity of the event, ⓑ risk-reward (drawdown, cash), ⓒ theme tailwind, ⓓ how much is already priced in.

Rank	Ticker	Theme	Why this rank (plain version)	Key event
1	SMMT	② geopolitics	Price down −56% from highs + a date-stamped event (FDA decision 11/14) + improved survival data	PDUFA 11/14
2	VKTX	① obesity	Phase 3 enrollment complete + $502M cash + $4.2B market cap. Against Pfizer’s $10B deal, it reads as a takeover candidate	Multiple Q3 readouts
3	AKTS	④ RLT	The $8B deal reset valuations + $538M cash. But its own data are far out (early 2027)	Trial start
4	CABA/KYTX	⑥ autoimmune	Low-cap survivors of an M&A-validated theme	Conference data, approval track
5	GPCR	① oral obesity	Journal publication + Phase 3 entry. Ranked lower because data are far away	Ph3 start

What about the two headliners of 8/18~19, MRNA and TWST? This is where the discipline bites. “They are anchors that validated the themes, but not chase-buys right after a gap-up.” The good news entered the price via the gap, so they are excluded from first-priority new additions; the discipline is to wait for pullbacks and full data. The principle “stand before the event, do not chase after it” applies to Korean names just the same.

One more piece of discipline. High-risk names like these get a single-digit percent of the portfolio as a total cap, one third of that per name at most, spread across different themes, and never a full bet before a readout (enter in tranches). These rules came out of a post-mortem on July’s drawdown.

6. The Korea linkage map: where does this wave land?

Now the main course. Here is the map of where the 8 US themes connect to Korean listed companies through actual contracts.

Company by company: what is substance and what is hope

This post scores each name on substance (filings and contracts) crossed with quant (price relative strength, RS, and institutional/foreign flows). The RS percentile answers “among all Korean stocks, what percentile is this stock’s recent price momentum?” on a 0~100 scale (93 means top 7%).

Alteogen: the only one already collecting royalties from an FDA-approved product. Covered here many times. Keytruda SC, built on its IV-to-subcutaneous platform (ALT-B4), won FDA approval, and royalties have started flowing into actual revenue (Q2 revenue +262%). An Enhertu SC upfront of $20M and a KOSPI transfer are also in motion. Because the cash flow rests on an approved product rather than on promises, it ranks highest on substance among the Korean links. RS 47 (middle), flows +₩7.5bn.

HanAll Biopharma: the partner’s clinical success is already in the numbers. It licensed an FcRn-mechanism drug (removing the antibodies that cause autoimmune disease) to US-based Immunovant, whose candidate IMVT-1402 posted a strong ACR20 of 72.7% (share of patients with 20%+ symptom improvement) in a rheumatoid-arthritis Phase 2b. Serial indication-by-indication readouts come in H2. At RS 93 (top 7%), it is the rare case where substance and momentum are high at the same time. One caveat: recent flows show profit-taking at −₩5.1bn.

Samsung Biologics: classified as the anchor. A beneficiary of the BIOSECURE act (effective 12/18) restricting Chinese CDMOs, plus the completed GSK Rockville plant purchase and a ₩6.8tn order backlog. Our June post filed it under “great company, already expensive,” but in this phase it is the main body of the rotation trade (institutions+foreigners +₩365bn over 20 days). Sector exposure rather than a high-risk bet.

OliX: the siRNA company with a real Lilly contract. It licensed its obesity/MASH candidate (OLX702A) to Lilly for a total of ₩911.7bn, and Lilly took over Phase 1 directly. One of the few Korean names tied to theme ① by an actual contract. RS 92 puts momentum high too; the −₩18.9bn outflow is the watch item.

LigaChem Bio: a candidate for Korea’s biggest bio catalyst this year. It licensed an ADC to J&J for $1.7B, and whether J&J exercises its Phase 2 co-development option (≈$200M) is the biggest ‘26 event (not yet exercised). Exercise would mean the world’s largest pharma re-validating the technology. The price sits at RS 23, deep in drawdown. A textbook case of strong substance with a depressed price.

ABL Bio: a brain-delivery platform contracted with two big pharmas. Its BBB-shuttle technology (getting drugs across the blood-brain barrier) is licensed to GSK for about ₩4tn total (upfront ₩73.9bn) and to Lilly for $2.6B total (₩80.5bn already received). The price sits at RS 33, the largest drawdown relative to substance.

ST Pharm: Korea’s closest exposure to theme ⑧ (mRNA). On top of the oligo CDMO earnings covered in June (a $56M supply deal for a commercial US drug, among consecutive wins), it holds mRNA CDMO capability (its own capping technology). If personalized mRNA cancer vaccines are approved, per-patient manufacturing demand grows structurally, and ST Pharm is the closest Korean listed company to that value chain. To be honest about it: no direct intismeran-related order has been confirmed. The capability is fact; the orders are still hope.

Hanmi Pharm: waiting on data. Dosing has finished in the Phase 2b of the MASH candidate (efpegdutide) licensed to MSD, with analysis under way. Note that its ₩1.9tn Lilly deal is a short-bowel-syndrome (GLP-2) drug, not an obesity drug. The market often mislabels it as an obesity story, so keep the two apart.

FutureChem: an ultra-high-risk double binary. Dosing is complete in the US Phase 2a of its prostate-cancer radioligand (FC705) with H2 results pending, and licensing talks remain unsigned. Both the data and the deal have to work, so it is sized as an option (small). RS 4 (bottom decile).

Orum Therapeutics: platform substance, small size. Its DAC technology (attaching protein degraders to antibodies) is licensed to BMS ($100M upfront) with a Vertex option. But Q1 revenue was zero, so milestone timing is the risk.

One chart: the substance × momentum quadrant

Final priorities (research priorities, not investment advice):

Group A (core candidates): Alteogen, HanAll Biopharma. Substance and quant both rank high
Group B (accumulation-in-drawdown): LigaChem Bio, ABL Bio, ST Pharm. Contract substance is solid and catalysts are clear, but tranches (staged entry) are the premise
Group C (event options, small size): OliX, Orum Therapeutics, FutureChem. Acknowledge the binary nature and size them as options
Anchor: Samsung Biologics (plus Celltrion). The main body of the rotation trade

One important footnote on flows. Over 20 days, institutions appeared to accumulate LigaChem (+₩21.2bn) and ABL Bio (+₩23.6bn), but over the latest 7 sessions institutions were net sellers and foreigners net buyers. “Institutions are buying” always depends on the window. And above all, observed accumulation never guarantees a bottom.

7. The caution list: names that borrowed the theme without the substance

The most dangerous thing for a beginner is a stock whose theme link is exaggerated relative to its substance. Here is what verification turned up:

Name	The story going around	Verified reality
Peptron	“A deal with Lilly”	A pre-contract evaluation agreement (running to Oct ‘26). Reports say competitor Camurus exercised its option; flows −₩38.6bn
D&D Pharmatech	“Pfizer partner”	Pfizer discontinued the relevant candidate (MET-224o). The risk event is live
Binex	“BIOSECURE beneficiary”	Only ‘hopes’ of benefit. No major order filing
Syntekabio	“AI drug discovery”	Revenue of ₩3.4bn against the theme talk
DuChemBio	“Therapeutic radio-CDMO”	A ‘plan’ stage targeting 2030
Inventage Lab	“Boehringer deal”	An undisclosed-amount joint research arrangement

See the common pattern? “Global pharma name + unclear contract type.” A definitive license (with total value and milestones in a filing) and an evaluation agreement or joint research differ like night and day, yet headlines render both as “XX joins hands with global big pharma.” Check first whether the type and amount of the contract are confirmed in filings.

8. The Q4 event calendar and the risks

A defining feature of this cycle: the binary events cluster in Q4.

The honest risk list (red team)

Entering year two of a rally: buying after a +88.8% year is itself a risk. If inflation reignites and the rate path flips, biotech, with only future profits, gets hit first.
Binary clustering: SMMT on 11/14, CagriSema in Q4, and BIOSECURE on 12/18 are stacked in one quarter; outcomes can swing the whole sector both ways.
Limits of the two August events: the cancer vaccine’s absolute effect size is undisclosed (a small number would mean a pullback), and personalized manufacturing still faces cost and reimbursement hurdles. Claude’s protein design sits far from clinical value, and Twist’s spike could fade as a one-off.
Misreading Korean flows: “institutional accumulation equals a bottom” is not a valid equation. Institutions were net sellers of LigaChem and ABL Bio over the latest 7 sessions.
The unverified list: the vaccine’s effect size and approval timeline, a direct Twist-Anthropic contract, ST Pharm’s direct mRNA orders, undisclosed royalty rates and option terms. This is why none of these appear in this post as settled facts.

9. Closing summary

Three sentences.

The US biotech rally runs on real structure (M&A, rates, IPOs), but it is past +88.8% in a year with events stacked in Q4. The theme-chasing phase is ending; the event-drawdown-substance selection phase is beginning.
The two August events (the mRNA cancer Phase 3, AI protein design) genuinely redrew the theme map. In particular, the per-patient manufacturing nature of personalized therapy opens a quiet beneficiary path: CDMOs.
In Korea, everything reduces to separating contract-backed substance from theme-borrowed hope. Substance-plus-momentum (Alteogen, HanAll), substance-plus-drawdown (LigaChem, ABL Bio), and the caution list. That distinction is the map this post leaves you.

FAQ

Q. XBI is up +88.8%. Am I too late? A. More precise than “late or not” is “the easy part is over.” Year-one beta (the whole sector rising) has passed; from here, events and stock selection decide returns. That is why discipline comes first: total caps, diversification, tranches.

Q. If US biotech rises, does Korean biotech automatically follow? A. Not automatically. While XBI rose +39%, Korean small/mid biotechs failed to keep up, and flows polarized into large caps only. That gap can be the opportunity, but the gap closes first in names with contract substance. Hence this post’s focus on verifying substance.

Q. Should I buy whenever a licensing headline appears? A. Check the contract type first. A definitive deal (total value, upfront, milestones in the filing) and an evaluation agreement or joint research carry completely different weight. Section 7’s caution list shows exactly those traps.

Q. The mRNA cancer vaccine succeeded. Should I buy related stocks? A. Separate two things. ① It is a Phase 3 success, not an approval, and the absolute effect size is undisclosed. ② No Korean listed company has confirmed direct benefit. ST Pharm’s mRNA manufacturing capability is the closest, but no such order is confirmed. Waiting for full data and order filings beats chasing theme spikes.

Q. What are the data cut-offs? A. US prices are the 8/19 close; Korean quant (RS, flows) is an 8/7 database partially adjusted to 8/19 prices. Events and prices keep moving, so always re-check before trading.

Evidence classification (Appendix)

[Fact]

XBI +88.8% over 1 year, +39.1% YTD; last month biotech +9.7% vs semis −6.0% (8/19 close).
H1 biotech M&A $123B~$134B (varies by tracker), past full-year 2025. Patent-cliff exposure through 2030: $170~300B.
Merck/Moderna intismeran (mRNA-4157) + Keytruda met RFS and DMFS in a 1,137-patient melanoma Phase 3 (8/19). Not an approval; effect size undisclosed. mFLUSIVA FDA approval (8/5).
Anthropic-Claude protein design: 14 of 15 targets, hit rate 22~35% (industry 10~15%), independently verified by Twist and Adaptyv, Twist 8-K and +17%.
Korean contract substance: Alteogen Keytruda SC royalties (Q2 revenue +262%) and $20M Enhertu SC upfront; HanAll IMVT-1402 RA Ph2b ACR20 72.7%; OliX Lilly deal ₩911.7bn; LigaChem J&J $1.7B (option unexercised); ABL GSK ≈₩4tn + Lilly $2.6B; Orum BMS $100M upfront; ST Pharm $56M supply deal; Samsung Bio ₩6.8tn backlog and GSK Rockville purchase.
Flows (20 days, institutions+foreigners): Samsung Bio +₩365bn, Celltrion +₩341.3bn, LigaChem +₩21.2bn, ABL +₩23.6bn. But over the latest 7 sessions LigaChem/ABL saw institutional net selling and foreign net buying.

[Inference]

The semis-to-biotech rotation is measurably under way, with the patent cliff as the structural driver of the M&A supercycle.
AI drug-discovery value is migrating from ‘AI biotechs’ to frontier labs plus verification/synthesis infrastructure (picks and shovels).
Given per-patient manufacturing, approval of personalized mRNA therapy would structurally lift mRNA CDMO demand.
The gap left by Korean small/mid biotechs lagging the US rally likely closes first in names with contract substance.

[Speculation]

ST Pharm winning personalized-mRNA-related orders (capability confirmed, orders not).
LigaChem’s J&J option exercise, FutureChem signing a license, a VKTX takeover scenario.
A formal Twist-Anthropic commercial collaboration emerging.

[Blocked]

INTerpath-001 effect size, OS data, and approval timeline.
Undisclosed terms such as Alteogen’s royalty rate and LigaChem’s final option terms.
Details of Peptron’s evaluation agreement; the fate of D&D Pharmatech’s follow-on program.
The gap between M&A tallies ($123B vs $134B) across trackers.

Method: 108 public sources (filings, STAT, NEJM, CNBC, FierceBiotech, BioSpectator and others) cross-checked against a quantitative screen of 312 Korean listed biotechs (RS and flows), as of 2026-08-20. Source grades S1 (filings) through S4 (blogs, not adopted) were applied, and unverified items are flagged in the text and under [Blocked].

이 글은 리서치·정보 제공용이며 투자 조언이 아닙니다. 종목명은 분석을 위한 예시이며, 매수·매도 권유가 아닙니다. 데이터 기준일: 2026년 8월 20일 KST.

Disclaimer: For research and information purposes only. Not investment advice. Company names are cited for analytical illustration. US prices are as of the Aug 19, 2026 close; Korean quantitative data (RS/flows) are from an Aug 7 database partially adjusted to Aug 19; financial and deal figures are based on company filings and media reports. Clinical and regulatory events are high-risk binary catalysts. Conflict-of-interest note: this post was written with the assistance of Anthropic’s Claude; items involving Anthropic are presented alongside external verification and skeptical views. Data as of August 20, 2026 (KST).

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