After an up-and-down day – mostly up, toward the end – during which the phrase “totality of the data” got air time aplenty, shares of PTC Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT) closed at $34.07, a rise of $5.66, or almost 20%, on word of top-line data from Study 041 with Translarna (ataluren) in nonsense mutation Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).
Analysts have already started tagging Cogent Biosciences Inc.’s bezuclastinib as potentially best in class, after the company presented impressive, though early stage, data at the European Hematology Association Congress in Vienna demonstrating promising efficacy and a possibly differentiating safety profile for the selective KIT D816V inhibitor in advanced systemic mastocytosis.
Code Biotherapeutics Inc. has raised an upsized and oversubscribed series A financing to develop programs for treating rare and genetic diseases that include Duchenne muscular dystrophy and type 1 diabetes.
Mitorx Therapeutics Ltd. is poised to develop small molecules that reverse impaired sulphide signaling underlying degenerative diseases ranging from Duchenne muscular dystrophy to Alzheimer’s disease. The company was formed some time ago as a spinout from Exeter University, where the founding scientist Matt Whiteman is professor of experimental therapeutics. It is showing its colors for the first time after closing a seed funding round.
In a first of its kind phase I trial, Rejuvenate Biomed NV has secured ethical clearance to induce acute sarcopenia in 42 healthy subjects, aged 65 to 75 years old. That will be achieved by placing a cast on one leg to induce sarcopenia through muscle disuse. The volunteers in the double-blind trial will then receive either RJx-01, an oral small molecule for treating sarcopenia, or placebo.
Discussions with regulators on a proposed phase III trial design are up next for Bridgebio Pharma Inc., which reported positive phase II data for BBP-418 (ribitol) in patients with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2 (LGMD2i), the first of several clinical readouts expected in 2022, as the Palo Alto, Calif-based company looks to regain its footing after disappointing top-line data for its phase III program in transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy leveled the stock late last year.
Lululemon founder Chip Wilson has chipped in $100 million to prime the pump for finding a cure to the rare form of muscular dystrophy that has hampered him for the past 35 years. He’s got more than a monetary stake in the donation. The 67-year-old entrepreneur suffers from facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy type 2 (FSHD) and just launched Solve FSHD to find a cure.
LONDON – In the largest-ever series A for a Spanish biotech, Splicebio S.L. has raised €50 million (US$56.9 million) to apply its protein splicing technology to the delivery of large genes that do not fit into existing vectors. The company claims its approach will overcome the capacity constraints of adeno-associated viral vectors (AAVs), by splitting genes into parcels and reconstituting the proteins they express in vivo.
UCB SA anticipates submitting regulatory applications in the third quarter for IL-17-targeting bimekizumab in psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, after chalking up second successful phase III trials in both indications. Meanwhile, the high commercial hopes for the would-be blockbuster remain at least temporarily deferred as pandemic-related travel restrictions have delayed FDA action on the BLA for plaque psoriasis.
The FDA clapped a clinical hold on the IND for a clinical trial of Dyne Therapeutics Inc.’s DYNE-251 for treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy in patients amenable to skipping exon 51. The agency is asking for more clinical and non-clinical information on the therapy. A response, including data from existing and ongoing studies in the second quarter of 2022, is expected to be filed to the FDA sometime in mid-2022, Dyne said.
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