In a deal worth up to $840 million, Third Arc Bio Inc. is licensing Adagene Inc.’s Safebody technology platform to generate two masked CD3 T-cell engagers against unique tumor associated antigens.
Fifteen years since the first patient was treated, and after being ditched by two companies, the EMA is recommending approval of Waskyra (etuvetidigene autotemcel), the first gene therapy for treating Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome.
The U.S. FDA gave the thumbs up to Kura Oncology Inc./Kyowa Kirin Co. Ltd.’s selective oral menin inhibitor, ziftomenib, to treat relapsed, refractory (r/r) nucleophosmin1 (NMP1)-mutant acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The approval of the drug, branded Komzifti, came more than two weeks ahead of the Nov. 30 PDUFA date.
Up to 77% of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer in Asia-Pacific rely almost entirely on their physicians to decide their treatment, even though 69% of physicians say they encourage shared decision-making. That disconnect remains one of the region’s biggest obstacles to improving outcomes, Anthony Elgamal, vice president of Oncology Asia Pacific at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine, told BioWorld.
South Korean researchers led by Lee In-suk of Yonsei University have reported the most complete oral microbiome catalog to date, with more than 72,000 genomes. Detailed in Cell Host & Microbe on Nov. 12, 2025, the database is expected to serve as a universal platform for academia and enable “precision microbiome medicine” for the industry, Lee told BioWorld.
Laekna Inc. outlicensed select rights to LAE-002 (afuresertib), an oral pan-AKT kinase inhibitor licensed from Novartis AG in 2018, to Qilu Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. under a potential ¥2.045 billion (US$287.23 million) deal.
Engene Holdings Inc.’s protocol amendment to its phase II trial with detalimogene voraplasmid in bladder cancer worked out in a big way, and shares of the firm closed Nov. 11 at $8.82, up $2.81, or 47%. Engene rolled out additional preliminary data from the pivotal cohort of the ongoing Legend study testing the nonviral gene therapy in high-risk, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin-unresponsive non-muscle invasive bladder cancer with carcinoma in situ, with or without concomitant papillary disease.
CEO Lynn Seely said Lyell Immunopharma Inc. is going “full steam ahead” with development of rondecabtagene autoleucel (ronde-cel, also known as LYL-314) amid the excitement of the firm’s latest news: the buy of global rights to LYL-273, an autologous guanylyl cyclase-C-targeted CAR T-cell candidate for metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), from Innovative Cellular Therapeutics Inc. (ICT) for an up-front payment of $40 million and 1.9 million shares of Lyell common stock.
Cogent Biosciences Inc. is now lining up two NDA submissions for its tyrosine kinase inhibitor bezuclastinib in treating two forms of cancer. Cogent intends to submit an NDA for bezuclastinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor that targets and inhibits mutated KIT proteins, specifically KIT D816V, in the first half of 2026 to treat gastrointestinal stromal tumors. That will follow the company’s plans for an NDA submission for bezuclastinib in treating non-advanced systemic mastocytosis before the end of 2025.
Blocking progesterone receptor (PR) activity has long been viewed as a possible approach to breast cancer prevention. Historically, most supporting evidence came from animal models, epidemiological studies or mechanistic pathway analyses. Now, a team at the University of Manchester has uncovered direct mechanistic and clinical evidence that PR antagonists can reprogram the breast tissue microenvironment, suggesting a novel avenue for reducing breast cancer risk in women.
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