Judo Bio Inc. emerged from stealth mode and rolled out data showing the value of using megalin receptors for intracellular delivery of ligand-small interfering RNA (siRNA) therapeutics to the kidney as a way of reducing expression of the targeted genes.

Loqus23 Therapeutics Ltd. has raised £35 million (US$46.6 million) in a series A to take forward small molecules it has discovered for the treatment of Huntington’s disease and other conditions that are driven by DNA mismatch repair (MMR). MMR fixes DNA insertions, deletions and misincorporation errors that occur during transcription and/or cellular replication. Smaller repairs are directed by MutSalpha, a protein that binds single base mismatches, while MutSbeta handles larger insertion/deletion loops. Huntington’s and other triplet repeat diseases are caused when trinucleotide repeats accumulate in somatic DNA to the extent that they interfere with protein expression.

Loqus23 Therapeutics Ltd. has closed a £35 million (US$43 million) series A financing, with the aim of supporting its work developing small-molecule somatic expansion inhibitors for the treatment of Huntington’s disease and other triplet repeat disorders.

In one of the top series A financings in biopharma history, new company Kailera Therapeutics Inc. emerged with $400 million raised and a pipeline of next-generation assets to treat obesity and type 2 diabetes.

A drive to overcome the limitations of traditional antibodies led Toronto-based scientists Jean-Philippe Julien and Bebhinn Treanor to work toward discovering a multivalent, multispecific platform to develop therapies that can reach difficult targets. As a result, through the support of VC firm Amplitude Ventures, Radiant Biotherapeutics emerged in 2020 armed with what has become its Multabody platform.

Brightflow SAS raised €16.5 million (US$18 million) in a series A financing round that will go towards developing its right ventricular mechanical circulatory support system. The company is working towards bringing the first long-term fully percutaneous implantable pump for right-sided heart failure to the market, Sophie Humbert, CEO at Brightflow, told BioWorld.

Candid Therapeutics Inc. launched with ex-China control of two bispecific T-cell engager antibodies that it plans to develop for autoimmune diseases. The San Diego-based company will start off with a pocketful of cash, having raised over $370 million for the development of the in-licensed candidates.

Artificial intelligence (AI) drug discovery company Noetik Inc. has closed on an oversubscribed $40 million series A financing round. The company plans to use the money to expand its atlas of human cancer biology with its in vivo CRISPR platform to advance a pipeline of cancer therapeutics to the clinic. In describing its approach, the company said that making a genuine impact on drug discovery requires computational capabilities to understand and simulate disease biology at the patient level, identifying the right targets and matching them with the right therapies.