Taysha Gene Therapies Inc., a new Dallas-based company reuniting former executives of Avexis Inc. and its funders, has launched with a $30 million seed financing intended to advance a pipeline of 15 new AAV-based candidates. Its team expects to file four INDs by the end of 2021, starting with one for GM2-gangliosidosis that could move to the clinic later this year.

DUBLIN – Compass Pathways Ltd. raised $80 million in a series B round to continue its development of the psychedelic drug psilocybin in treatment-resistant depression.

A once-daily add-on therapy for Parkinson's disease (PD) used in Europe for years has now gained clearance in the U.S. with FDA approval of Ongentys (opicapone). The drug, an improvement upon generics in its class, will be sold by Neurocrine Biosciences Inc. The medicine, a catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitor first approved by the EMA in 2016, extends the half-life of levodopa, increasing doses of which are required to achieve motor control as PD progresses. Portugal-based Bial-Portela & Ca SA, from which Neurocrine licensed North American rights to the drug, will receive a $20 million award from its partner. Shares of San Diego-based Neurocrine (NASDAQ:NBIX), a neuroscience company focused on treating movement disorders, rose 3.5% following the approval, closing at $101.67 on April 27.

Privately held Swanbio Therapeutics Inc., of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., completed a $52 million expanded series A financing designed to boost the company’s R&D of adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based gene therapies to treat adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN) and other rare, monogenic neurological diseases.

Supernus Pharmaceuticals Inc. has struck an agreement with privately held Navitor Pharmaceuticals Inc. to run a joint phase II program for Navitor's mTORC1 activator, NV-5138, in treatment-resistant depression (TRD).

Although the product pipeline for vaccines and therapeutics targeting COVID-19 is top of mind right now, investors are also keeping a close eye on companies involved in the development of medicines targeting cancer and the central nervous system. According to financings tracked by BioWorld and deals and grants logged in Cortellis, the therapeutic areas of cancer, neurology and psychiatric attracted the highest amounts of investments last year with a collective $101.9 billion and $27.5 billion raised, respectively.

Positive top-line results from the first of two pivotal phase III studies of daridorexant, a dual orexin receptor antagonist (DORA) for treating insomnia from Idorsia Ltd., of Allschwil, Switzerland, showed significantly improved sleep onset, sleep maintenance and improved subjective total sleep time in 930 adult and elderly patients.

Chinese scientists have shown for the first time that the down-regulation of a single RNA-binding protein, polypyrimidine tract-binding protein 1 (Ptbp1), locally converted glial cells to neurons and showed promise for treating the symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases in mice.