Suzhou, China-based Kintor Pharmaceutical Ltd. reported positive findings from a phase II study of GT-20029, a topical therapy for male androgenetic alopecia, on April 21 – boosting both the company’s stock and its chances of a late-stage clinical study in China and the U.S.
Yuhan Corp., of Seoul, South Korea, added a new potential cancer drug to its oncology pipeline, licensing a son of sevenless homolog 1 (SOS1) inhibitor co-developed by Cyrus Therapeutics Inc. and Kanaph Therapeutics Inc. for ₩208 billion (US$156.3 million).
Yuhan Corp., of Seoul, South Korea, added a new potential cancer drug to its oncology pipeline, licensing a son of sevenless homolog 1 (SOS1) inhibitor co-developed by Cyrus Therapeutics Inc. and Kanaph Therapeutics Inc. for ₩208 billion (US$156.3 million).
The discovery of how proteins fold and what happens if they don’t, or do it wrong, has impacted medicine. Protein function and several pathologies depend on folding. Four scientists, Franz-Ulrich Hartl, Arthur Horwich, Kazutoshi Mori and Peter Walter, revealed the role of chaperones in assisting proteins to acquire their correct structure and described a failure warning system, the unfolded protein response (UPR). For their studies, the researchers will receive the 2024 Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Medicine from the BBVA Foundation.
A research team based at MIT and Harvard has engineered a bacterial injection system to precisely deliver proteins to human cells. This work, published online March 29, 2023, in Nature, is important as while more and more molecular therapies are being developed, off-target effects are always a concern and precise targeting of cells and tissues can still be a challenge.
Treatment with the fusion protein QL-1005 reduced caloric intake and body weight in mice and primates. In obese animals, it also improved insulin, fasting glucose and triglyceride levels. The design belongs to the Chinese biopharmaceutical company Beijing QL Biopharmaceutical, which will begin clinical trials in a year.
Researchers have developed an algorithm that was able to create functional enzymes from scratch after being trained with the amino acid sequences of existing enzymes in the same class. Researchers from the University of California at San Francisco described their method online in Nature Biotechnology on Jan. 26, 2023. The method, which its creators have named Progen, can generate “protein sequences with a predictable function across large protein families,” according to the authors.
Nurix Therapeutics Inc. landed its second big pharma collaboration in seven months when it signed with Sanofi SA to discover, develop and commercialize a pipeline of protein degradation therapies. In the Sanofi deal, Nurix receives $55 million up front and is eligible for up to about $2.5 billion in total payments based on achieved milestones. To start, Nurix will design small molecules to induce degradation in three specific targets while Sanofi has the option to up the ante to five targets. Sanofi receives exclusive rights and will handle clinical development and commercialization and Nurix retains the option to co-develop and co-co-promote up to two products in the U.S.
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