Technology of genomically recoded organisms borne out of Yale and Stanford university laboratories and housed at Khosla Ventures-backed Pearl Bio received validation on March 12 through a $1 billion deal signed with Merck & Co. Inc. Cambridge, Mass.-based Pearl, which emerged from stealth last year, is eligible for the funds through up-front, option and milestone payments, plus potential royalties on sales of deal-related products that gain approval. The synthetic biology company aims to create a new class of multi-functionalized therapeutics with tunable properties. The deal with Rahway, N.J.-based Merck will focus on new cancer biologics.
Antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) specialist Tubulis GmbH has closed a hefty €128 million (US$139.4 million) series B2 round, more than double the €60 million it raised in its series B1 two years ago.
After hearing two conflicting presentations of the safety and efficacy of Geron Corp.’s imetelstat, the U.S. FDA’s Oncology Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) voted 12-2 March 14 that the drug’s benefit outweighed its risks as a treatment for transfusion-dependent anemia in adults with low- to intermediate-1 risk myelodysplastic syndromes in patients who have failed or no longer respond to erythropoiesis stimulating agents (ESAs), or who are not eligible for ESA treatment.
Hyundai Bioscience Corp. is set to become the largest shareholder of ADM Korea Inc., a Seoul, South Korea-based contract research organization (CRO) firm, by purchasing 5.02 million shares for ₩20.4 billion (US$15.5 million) – a 23% stake.
Asgard Therapeutics AB has raised €30 million (US$32.8 million) in a series A round to advance a novel approach to cancer immunotherapy, in which it is proposed to reprogram cancer cells into functional antigen-presenting dendritic cells in vivo, activating a host immune response against the tumor.
The H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute has described cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer, inflammation and myotonic dystrophy type 1 disease.
Investigators at Ileadbms Co. Ltd. have discovered a new cyclin-dependent kinase 12 (CDK12) and CDK13 inhibitor, IL6-110, which is being developed for the treatment of cancer.
Asgard Therapeutics AB has announced a €30 million (US$32.7 million) series A financing to advance its first-in-class in vivo cell reprogramming platform for immuno-oncology.
There’s no denying that Johnson & Johnson’s Carvykti (ciltacabtagene autoleucel) and Bristol Myers Squibb Co.’s Abecma (idecabtagene vicleucel) show clinical benefit as they seek to move up in the line of treatment for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. But the question that will be put to the U.S. FDA’s Oncology Drugs Advisory Committee March 15 is whether the benefit outweighs a risk of early deaths seen with both CAR T therapies.