Startup Curimeta Inc. emerged from stealth with $6 million in seed financing led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and BJC Healthcare, a St. Louis-based nonprofit health care system. Cultivation Capital Healthcare Innovation Fund also participated in the round.
Since its launch in the U.S. in April, Biolab Sciences Inc.’s Dermistat has facilitated the healing of 80 wounds using its unusual gel-graft formula. The product transforms a patient’s skin cells into a partial thickness skin graft in 48 hours and a full-thickness graft in five to seven days. The autologous graft material speeds recovery following surgery or burns and helps to resolve non-healing wounds.
Sichuan Jinjiang Electronic Science and Technology Co. Ltd. (JJET) recently completed series A+ and series B rounds, raising a total of ¥700 million (US$101 million) in series A and series B financing.
Gate Neurosciences Inc. was first founded in 2019, but officially launched last week with two clinical-stage assets and a bold goal: to develop better drugs for CNS disorders and identify better-suited patients for those drugs. The company’s first molecular target is the NMDA receptor. Gate has acquired the rights to two NMDA receptor modulators, zelquistinel and apimostinel.
Having initiated its first two clinical trials in non-small-cell lung cancer since January, Nuvalent Inc. said it expects to unveil preliminary dose-escalation data before year-end. Ahead of the data, Nuvalent's phase I/II Arros-1 trial evaluating NVL-520, a kinase inhibitor, in patients with advanced ROS1-positive NSCLC and other solid tumors, continues to enroll participants.
Founded in 2014, Bertis Co. Ltd. is developing proteomics-based diagnostics and biomarkers by combining artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) algorithms with high-performance mass spectrometry technology. Using this technology, it is able to quantify extremely small amounts of protein.
Nuvectis Pharma Inc. has been in business for barely two years, but thanks to a business model involving in-licensing promising late preclinical drug candidates, it has already begun a trial with a molecule targeting a little-known pathway that cancer cells depend on for protection. The firm is also close to the clinic with a drug that could give a new twist to tyrosine kinase inhibition after a $16 million financing round in early August.
Alterity Therapeutics Ltd. has begun phase II trials with its lead candidate, ATH-434, in multiple system atrophy, a rare and highly debilitating Parkinsonian disorder.
Heartpoint Global Inc. has reached a milestone in the ongoing preclinical trials of its Heartpoint Global Implant System (HPGS), focused on treating left heart diseases, congestive heart failure, and structural pulmonary hypertension. In large animal studies, the system appeared to significantly improve the structure of the heart and the function of the heart-lung system.
Exploiting deficiencies in tumor cells’ inability to repair damage to their DNA has been one of the most successful endeavors of oncology research in recent memory. There are four approved PARP inhibitors to treat certain types of breast, ovarian, pancreatic and prostate cancers. Multiple other synthetic lethal combinations that might push repair-deficient tumors into cell death are being investigated. In the July 29, 2022, issue of Science, researchers at Yale University have described another approach to turning DNA repair defect against itself. Startup Modifi Biosciences Inc. is now on course to translate that work.