Yumanity Therapeutics Inc. said that Merck & Co. Inc. is making a big bet on its nascent neurodegenerative disease pipeline, licensing exclusive rights to programs addressing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and a rare type of dementia in a deal with up to $500 million in potential milestone payments. The collaboration also includes an up-front payment, money toward a series C financing and potential royalties on net sales of the licensed programs, though the value of those elements wasn't disclosed. Yumanity will carry the Merck-licensed programs, each targeting protein misfolding, through preclinical research. Merck will then move them into the clinic and on to commercialization, if warranted.

Biogeneration Ventures cranks up Fund IV with $119M

DUBLIN – Biogeneration Ventures (BGV) raised €105 million (US$118.7 million) for its fourth fund, further brightening the prospects for early stage investing in European biotech. The fund’s closing immediately follows that of Epidarex Capital, which earlier this week announced it had raised £102.1 million (US$126.3 million) for its third fund. BGV has steadily grown its asset base since launching its debut seed fund in 2006. Its first two funds were small in scale, but they produced spectacular returns, most notably Cambridge, U.K.-based Astrazeneca plc’s $4 billion acquisition of a 55% stake in Acerta Pharma BV, of Oss, the Netherlands, in 2015, and Amgen Inc.’s acquisition in the same year of Amsterdam-based Dezima Pharma NV for $300 million in cash plus up to $1.25 billion in milestones.

With $700M first round financing, privately held Sana slips into top spot

Up-and-coming cell and gene engineering company Sana Biotechnology Inc. raised $700 million in a first round financing, bumping Moderna Inc., which previously had the highest venture capital financing of a traditional biotech company to date. Sana beat Moderna by about $200 million, and not only boasts the largest VC round, but the largest first round, or series A, ever, according to the BioWorld database. The company emerged in the first quarter of 2019 to focus on cell and gene therapies, as well as gene editing. In a trail of big money, it was founded by executives from Juno Therapeutics Inc., acquired for $10.4 billion in 2018 by Celgene Corp., which itself was acquired for $74 billion in 2019 by Bristol Myers Squibb Co. Those two acquisitions of biotech developers rank as the 14th and first largest, respectively. Moderna and Juno completed the first and ninth largest biopharma IPOs, raising $604.35 million and $304.8 million in 2018 and 2014, respectively.

Despite missing primary outcome measure, Biohaven plans to move troriluzole into phase III

Top-line results from a phase II/III proof-of-concept study for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder, conducted by Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co. Ltd., of New Haven, Conn., show troriluzole as an adjunctive therapy produced consistent numerical improvement over placebo at all the study’s timepoints. However, the study failed to meet its primary outcome measure at week 12. Biohaven, playing to the study’s positives, said it will advance troriluzole into a full phase III by adding a larger sample size and adding a higher-dose arm. Company stock (NASDAQ:BHVN) sagged 4.5% at midday, lingering at about $69.50 per share. The stock’s value has, however, more than doubled since April 1.

Upbeat findings roll out in COVID-19 with Redhill’s opaganib

Redhill Biopharma Ltd. published in the online journal Medrxiv encouraging results from the treatment of the first severe COVID-19 patients with oral opaganib (ABC-294640), a first-in-class sphingosine kinase-2 inhibitor. The favorable outcomes involved seven patients treated at a hospital in Israel. Redhill has the same candidate in midstage development for cholangiocarcinoma.

AACR 2020: Resistance to targeted therapies: It works until it doesn't

Targeted therapy offers an opportunity for personalized medicine that's specific for a patient's tumor, but the hyper-focused treatment creates possibilities for cells to mutate and become resistant to the therapy. At the American Association for Cancer Research Virtual Annual Meeting II, researchers presented basic research showing how the resistance forms and preclinical data to potentially treat the resistance.

Australia’s Cynata ahead of the pack as it progresses iPSCs to phase III osteoarthritis trial

PERTH, Australia – Melbourne-based regenerative medicine company Cynata Therapeutics Ltd. is gearing up to take its Cymerus mesenchymal stem cell product candidate, CYP-004, into a phase III trial in osteoarthritis. The trial is sponsored by the University of Sydney and funded by an Australian Government National Health and Medical Research Council competitive project grant. “The trial was a goldmine that dropped in our lap. Not only do we not have to pay for the trial but now it’s a phase III trial and in a very large patient population,” Cynata Therapeutics CEO Ross Macdonald told BioWorld.

Pandemic shines light on all that’s wrong with the SNS

“Mission gallop,” years of limited funding and failure to restock used supplies all added up to making the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) less than ready to take on a pandemic on the global scale of COVID-19. “It’s the tail wagging the dog,” Julie Gerberding, former director of the CDC, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee today. The SNS is stocked based on the budget rather than the other way around, she explained. Going forward, public health must be viewed as a national security issue on the same level as the Department of Defense, she said.

SCOTUS passes on three IPR petitions for cert, but Arthex petition still in play

The Supreme Court has declined to hear three cases that questioned the inter partes review process for patent litigation, although the petition for cert for the Arthrex case is still pending. There is some question as to what would prompt the nation’s highest court to hear Arthrex, given that the Federal Circuit has fairly consistently applied the terms of that decision. Should the Supreme Court pass on Arthrex, however, a number of affected inter partes review cases will have to be relitigated at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

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The articles from BioWorld’s ongoing coverage of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak are available at www.bioworld.com/coronavirus. Note that we have added three critical tables which are constantly updated:

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