My Life Technologies Corp. has raised $4 million from investors to fund production and clinical trials for its microneedle technology. Based in Leiden, Netherlands, the company is developing a ceramic patch that can deliver vaccines or drugs through the skin. The technology could prove to be an attractive alternative to standard vaccine injections due to what the company says is its simple and painless delivery.

Ankyra Therapeutics Inc., a company developing new cytokine immunotherapies to boost localized antitumor immune responses, closed a $45 million series B financing. Proceeds from the round will be used to advance the Boston-based company's lead molecule, ANK-101, through IND-enabling studies and into phase I trials starting at the beginning of 2023, as well as to advance additional cytokine programs, it said.

The FDA has approved Pharmaessentia Corp.'s Besremi (ropeginterferon alfa-2b) for the rare blood disorder polycythemia vera, the interferon offering an alternative to JAK inhibitor therapy. PV is a rare, chronic and life-threatening blood cancer caused by a mutation in stem cells in the bone marrow, resulting in overproduction of blood cells. Besremi, which is already approved in Taiwan, Europe and South Korea, is a monopegylated, long-acting interferon, which counteracts the effects of the mutated bone marrow cells and is initially taken fortnightly.

Researchers working at Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic reported in the November 8, 2021, issue of Nature Cancer that an inhibitor of the beta-amyloid producing enzyme, BACE1, could reprogram tumor-promoting M2 macrophages to exert M1 tumor-suppressing activities in animal models of glioblastoma multiforme.