Could long non-coding RNAs be the key to developing organ-specific antifibrotic drugs that only mediate their effects in disease-related contexts? That’s the intriguing hypothesis that Haya Therapeutics SA has set out to explore, and its lead program, in heart failure caused by non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, is now in IND-enabling studies. A first clinical trial is pencilled in for late 2024 or early 2025.

After raising an undisclosed sum in a series A round, French biotech company Adipopharma LLC aims to progress its make-or-break targeted insulin resistance peptide into a phase I trial in type 2 diabetes patients by the end of 2023.

ABVC Biopharma Inc is headquartered in San Francisco but it has its roots in Taiwan where it is digging into traditional medicine and validating it for the modern world. “There are a number of drugs that can’t be synthesized in the lab,” ABVC CEO Howard Doong told BioWorld, so he is going back to the original source of traditional Chinese medicines to validate them using traditional drug development models.

ABVC Biopharma Inc is headquartered in San Francisco but it has its roots in Taiwan where it is digging into traditional medicine and validating it for the modern world. “There are a number of drugs that can’t be synthesized in the lab,” ABVC CEO Howard Doong told BioWorld, so he is going back to the original source of traditional Chinese medicines to validate them using traditional drug development models.

Pulmobiotics Ltd., which was founded in 2019, is developing cell therapy for lung diseases, including lung cancer. But unlike other cell therapies for cancer, this one is based not on harnessing T cells but on engineering bacteria. The team has engineered Mycoplasma pneumoniae to deliver various therapeutic proteins to the lung, depending on the therapeutic indication.

Juvena Therapeutics Inc. co-founder and CEO Hanadie Yousef had the company’s name picked out several years before it was officially incorporated in 2017 to combine Yousef’s work in the mechanics of aging with an underutilized class of biologics and an advanced proteomics platform to tackle chronic and age-related diseases.

Over the past few years, the pandemic clearly has put a spotlight on vaccines and the infectious disease space. But the struggle to adjust in COVID-19’s wake also brought into stark relief another high unmet need. “Coming out of COVID, there was a mental health focus coming into play,” said Andrew Levin, partner and managing director at investment firm RA Capital Management who is also serving as interim CEO at Lusaris Therapeutics Inc., a 2021 startup targeting neuropsychiatric and neurological conditions, with an initial focus on treatment-resistant depression.

Dialing down the immune response remains at the heart of myriad drug development efforts in autoimmune disease. Targeting cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor alpha or interleukin-12 (IL-12) and IL-23, IL-6, or IL-17, or modulating immune cell trafficking by targeting sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor or integrins, are therapeutic mainstays. But chronic immunosuppression and all its attendant safety concerns is the price that many autoimmune disease patients pay to remain in remission.

The age-old separation of dentistry from medicine is deeply embedded in education and professional practice. Given the great advances in both disciplines in recent decades, there is a reasonable argument to be made for maintaining the divide.

Swiss-American startup Opna Bio SA launched this week with a $38 million series A, a Science paper on one of its targets and a pipeline stretching from preclinical to phase II.