In light of its ongoing restructuring of priorities, Medigene AG, of Planegg/Martinsried, Germany, is now discontinuing its MDG-1021 development program. The company was planning a phase I study of the T-cell receptor-modified T-cell (TCR-T) therapy that targets the antigen HA-1 in patients with relapsed or persistent blood cancers after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Little more than half-a-year after closing its $78 million series A financing, Artiva Biotherapeutics Inc. has inked a new global licensing deal with Merck & Co. Inc. to develop up to three natural killer (NK) cell therapies engineered with chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) against tumor-associated antigens of its choosing. Merck will pay Artiva $30 million up front for two initial programs, plus $15 million more should it opt into the third. Each program carries $612 million in potential development and commercial milestone payments. With unfettered success, total deal value could hit $1.88 billion, plus royalties.

Boston-based Nirogy Therapeutics Inc.’s $16.5 million series A round is meant to enable a pipeline of small-molecule drugs targeting the solute carrier family of transporter proteins (SLCTs) embedded in the cell membrane, and let the firm bring its front oncology runner to the clinic in 2022.

The 2020 World Conference on Lung Cancer, which was scheduled to take place in Singapore last August, is set to kick off virtually later this week. The postponement gave companies time to generate additional data as they battle to treat patients with their targeted therapies.

Tscan Therapeutics Inc. CEO David Southwell told BioWorld that his firm’s series C financing of $100 million will allow two IND filings in liquid tumors this year and three – possibly more – in solid tumors starting next year. “We’ll be filing a lot of INDs in solid tumors,” he said. The Waltham, Mass.-based firm works with T-cell receptor-engineered T-cell therapies.

New funding to the tune of $8 million in series B investment moves Oncohost Ltd. a good bit closer to bringing its personalized immunotherapy prediction platform to market and key operations to the U.S.

DUBLIN – Merus NV is banking $40 million up front, plus an equity investment of $20 million, under a research collaboration and license agreement with Eli Lilly and Co.’s Loxo Oncology arm to develop up to three CD3-directed bispecific T-cell engager antibodies. Each program also has up to $540 million attached in development and commercialization milestones, taking the total potential value of the deal to $1.68 billion. Merus would also receive tiered royalties on any product sales, ranging, in percentage terms, from mid-single-digits to low-double-digits.

Lantern Pharma Inc., a Dallas-based cancer medicines developer using a machine learning platform to accelerate its work, is raising $60 million through a public offering priced at $14 per share (NASDAQ:LTRN).

Arcus Biosciences Inc., in a presentation on the opening day of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (ASCO GI), reported a 41% objective response rate across the first four cohorts in its phase I dose-escalation study of AB-680, a small-molecule CD73 inhibitor for treating metastatic pancreatic cancer. The data also showed 88% of patients experienced at least some shrinkage of their lesions.