Ascendis Pharma A/S kept mum on the cost of just-approved Skytrofa (lonapegsomatropin) for pediatric growth hormone deficiency (GHD) – saying only that “premium responsible pricing” would be put in place – but Wall Street speculated freely about revenues likely due from the first-ever weekly injection treatment.
Atavistik Bio Inc. has raised $60 million in a series A financing round to advance its preclinical molecules targeting genetically validated targets in metabolic diseases and cancer.
Jnana Therapeutics Inc. closed a $50 million series B round and took the covers off its lead program, a small-molecule inhibitor of the solute carrier transporter SLC6A19, which it is prepping for clinical trials in phenylketonuria (PKU).
The new case of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) that overshadowed Bluebird Bio Inc.’s earnings and resulted in a clinical hold by the FDA will be addressed similarly to an earlier hitch in the sickle cell disease program, said Andrew Obenshain, the company’s head of severe genetic diseases. “Essentially, we will try and do the same thing,” and exonerate the lentiviral vector, he said during a conference call with investors. “At this point, we don't have tumor cells or leukemia to analyze,” he noted.
Rivus Pharmaceuticals Inc. has emerged from stealth and disclosed a $35 million series A round to fund development of its pipeline of “controlled metabolic accelerators,” or CMAs, for treating cardiometabolic diseases.
Researchers have identified an evolutionarily conserved metabolic role for tissue-resident macrophages, they reported in the July 2, 2021, issue of Science. In a commentary published alongside the paper, Conan O’Brien and Ana Domingos from the University of Oxford asserted that the work “introduces a new, macrophage-centered paradigm in… energy storage.”
CEO John Leonard said Intellia Therapeutics Inc. plans “to share information on a cohort-by-cohort basis, so we get a consistent readout” and, as the year goes on, longer-term follow-up findings will emerge from the phase I trial with the company’s lead in vivo genome editing candidate, NTLA-2001.
Shares in Orphazyme A/S cratered after the FDA rejected its arimoclomol for Niemann-Pick disease type C, a rare and potentially fatal inherited condition where fat builds in tissues and organs.
LONDON – Newco Amyl Therapeutics Ltd. has raised €18.3 million (US$22.3 million) in a series A, to pick up the baton on a technology for neutralizing toxic protein aggregates by binding to their amyloid folds.
Scohia Pharma Inc. has secured an agreement with Huadong Medicine Co. Ltd., enabling the former to tap the greater China market for SCO-094, its GLP-1R and GIPR dual agonist.