China Medical System Holdings Ltd. has received clinical trial approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for CMS-D008 injection for overweight or obese individuals.

Targeting rare cardiomyopathy conditions with no approved disease-modifying therapies, Atrium Therapeutics Inc. started operations in San Diego, assuming the public listing and technology once held by Avidity Biosciences Inc., an RNA company acquired by Novartis AG for about $12 billion. Novartis closed the M&A, announced last October, as Atrium unveiled its pipeline and a $270 million cash position.

Frontier Biotechnologies Inc. has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with GSK plc whereby GSK will obtain exclusive worldwide rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize two of Frontier’s small interfering RNA (siRNA) pipeline products.

Madrigal Pharmaceuticals Inc. has signed an exclusive global license agreement with Suzhou Ribo Life Science Co. Ltd. and its subsidiary Ribocure Pharmaceuticals AB for six preclinical small interfering RNA (siRNA) programs.

Genentech Inc. is paying $200 million up front and up to $1.5 billion in milestone payments to license one of Suzhou Sanegene Bio Inc.’s RNAi programs. Metabolic and autoimmune-focused Sanegene did not disclose specifics around the licensed candidate, except that it was derived from its LEAD (Ligand and Enhancer Assisted Delivery) platform.

Medulloblastoma is one of the most common pediatric brain malignancies. A deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying tumor cell fate determination is crucial to develop novel, effective and safe therapeutic strategies. With this aim, researchers from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and collaborating institutions recently conducted a study integrating whole-genome bisulfite sequencing and bulk RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data from 189 human medulloblastoma samples.

Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. has filed a clinical trial application (CTA) in New Zealand seeking clearance to initiate a first-in-human trial of SRP-1005 (formerly ARO-HTT). Pending approval, the INSIGHTT trial is anticipated to begin in the second quarter of this year.

Yes-associated protein (YAP), encoded by Yes1-associated transcriptional regulator (YAP1) and transcriptional coactivator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ), encoded by WW domain containing transcription regulator 1 (WWTR1), are two crucial paralog transcriptional regulators of the Hippo pathway regulating organ size, tissue homeostasis and disease progression.

Peptidream Inc. has announced a preclinical development milestone in its collaboration with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. under their siRNA conjugate discovery collaboration.