Cereno Scientific AB plans to initiate preclinical disease model studies evaluating CS-585 in antiphospholipid syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease associated with recurrent blood clots and serious cardiovascular complications. The studies will be initiated this year under an ongoing research collaboration with the University of Michigan.
In a deal potentially worth up to $15.2 billion, Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. is joining efforts with Bristol Myers Squibb Co. to advance 13 early development programs in the fields of oncology, hematology and immunology. Shanghai-based Hengrui will hold exclusive rights in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, while Princeton, N.J.-based BMS will hold exclusive rights in the rest of the world.
Circular RNA (circRNA) is not a new concept, but it is a novel strategy in the field of gene and cell therapy. While mRNA vaccines have revolutionized medicine, this RNA fragment without free ends surpasses their performance in both efficacy and durability, bringing it to the attention of several pioneering companies. The latest advances in circRNA presented at the 29th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) clearly surpass the performance achieved with linear mRNA.
Ferrosa Therapeutics AG has announced a $3.5 million seed financing to support the development of a first-in-class bispecific antibody (FRS-101) to treat anemia of inflammation across chronic kidney disease, autoimmune disease and oncology indications.
Minimal residual disease (MRD) has become a central concept in modern oncology, reshaping how clinicians evaluate response, relapse risk and treatment precision. As increasingly sensitive technologies reveal traces of cancer that persist after therapy, MRD is emerging as both a biological challenge and a clinical opportunity, especially as new data illuminate its complexity across hematologic and solid tumors. This topic was addressed at the 2026 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting.
Alethio Therapeutics Inc. has unveiled ATX-011, a mutation-agnostic antibody for essential thrombocythemia. ATX-011 is a potential first-in-class monoclonal antibody based on a new target identified on mutant stem cells that drive myeloproliferative neoplasm disease progression.
Hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) research over the past century has shown that leukemia may be driven by an invisible hand of inflammation. The bone marrow and inflammation, then, may hold the keys to preventing blood cancers, according to John E. Dick’s plenary session at the 2026 Korean Society of Hematology International Conference (ICKSH 2026), held March 26, 2026. Work in Dick’s lab has found acute myeloid leukemia (AML) HSCs that harbor preleukemic mutations long before any disease diagnosis. These insights have enabled predictive models that could identify individuals at elevated AML risk years before the onset of outright disease, opening the door to new prevention strategies.
Epifrontier Therapeutics Inc. has been awarded a grant of up to $32 million in nondilutive funding from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) to advance the clinical development of EPF-001 (RK-701), a first-in-class G9a inhibitor being developed for sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia.
On the average, humans – and pigs, and deer, and birds – who live at high altitudes have better blood glucose control than their counterparts near sea level. In work published in the Feb. 19, 2026, issue of Cell Metabolism, investigators have linked this phenomenon to red blood cells that directly take up and metabolize glucose from the blood under low oxygen conditions.
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