When the first chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR T) therapy, Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel), was approved in 2016 for treating B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, its developer, Novartis AG, confined the initial rollout to just 20 treating centers. Its label carried a black box warning, because of the risk of life-threatening cytokine release syndrome, and Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis put in place a comprehensive risk evaluation and mitigation system to ensure its safe use. Catamaran Bio Inc., a Boston-based startup that has raised $42 million in seed and series A financing, is considering the administration of similarly engineered natural killer cells in walk-in clinics. “If the product is safe, it can be given as an out-patient treatment,” Chief Scientific Officer Vipin Suri told BioWorld. “As a field, this absolutely has to be our ambition.”
LONDON – Myricx Pharma Ltd. has launched with £4.5 million (US$5.9 million) seed funding to advance a new approach to targeting Myc, an oncogene that has defied long years of effort to drug it. The company will take a synthetic lethal approach, developing small-molecule inhibitors of N-myristoyltransferase to perturb pathways that Myc drives, causing cancer cell death.
TORONTO – Biomaterials med-tech company 3D Biofibr Inc. has raised CA$550,000 (US$423,500) seed funding to develop, commercialize and scale up a biofilm platform that mimics the spinning behavior of the common spider.
LONDON – Araris Biotech AG has raised CHF12.7 million (US$16.8 million) in a seed funding round to take forward what it claims is the holy grail for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), a linker technology that allows for the attachment of any payload to any antibody, without the need for engineering.
Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) kills millions of people worldwide each year, triggered by an electrical malfunction in the heart that causes it to unexpectedly stop beating, often without warning. Health care startup Transformative AI Ltd. wants to reduce those deaths. To that end, the company has secured $1.7 million in seed funding for artificial intelligence (AI)-driven software that predicts a patient’s risk of suffering SCA based on subtle physiological changes.
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.
I2O Therapeutics Inc., of Allston, Mass., raised $4 million in seed funding to further its work on oral formulations of therapies typically limited to injections, such as biologics, large molecules and peptide-based pharmaceuticals.
LONDON – The Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust have joined forces with financial services specialist Mastercard in establishing a $125 million seed fund to accelerate development of drugs to treat COVID -19. The COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator aims to play a catalytic role by speeding up evaluation of new and repurposed drugs and biologics to treat the novel coronavirus in the near term, and other viral pathogens in the longer term
PERTH, Australia – With new funding in hand from Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley Inc., Loop+ founders and sisters Kath Hamilton and Clare Conroy and are on their way to commercializing a pressure and movement tracking device they developed for wheelchair-bound patients.
Boulder, Colo.-based startup Arpeggio Biosciences Inc. scooped up $3.2 million in seed funding in a round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation by Fundersclub, Fifty Years, TechU and Y Combinator.