Benevolentai Ltd. has signed a strategic collaboration with Merck KGaA to identify novel drug candidates, initially for three targets in oncology, neurology and immunology.

Magnet Biomedicine Inc. emerged from stealth mode and pulled down a $50 million series A round co-led by founding investor Newpath Partners alongside Arch Venture Partners. The firm is advancing molecular glue discovery by way of rational selection and design, looking past known protein-protein interactions and what Magnet calls “tangential” degradation approaches to analyze the broader protein landscape and ultimately pair targets with rationally chosen presenters in the tissue where the disease manifests.

Evaxion Biotech A/S has announced the initiation of a novel pipeline program, EVX-B3, an artificial intelligence (AI)-designed vaccine candidate against an undisclosed bacterial pathogen. The new vaccine project will be the subject of a co-funded collaboration between Evaxion and an undisclosed partner.

Biontech SE and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) have established a strategic partnership to advance mRNA-based vaccine candidates with the development of BNT-166 for the prevention of mpox (formerly monkeypox).

Lipids are “very diverse, but also vastly understudied,” Anne Brunet told the audience at the recent meeting on Aging Research and Drug Discovery. Advances in the ability to predict protein structures have fueled a much better understanding of the human proteome and its estimated 20,000 members. The lipidome is much larger, numbering maybe 100,000 total. And what those lipids do remains much more fuzzy. “Very little is known about their function, and especially their function during aging,” Brunet said. Slowly, however, technological advances are enabling researchers to understand the roles of lipids as well.