Securing a second major partnership with Sanofi SA – this time worth a potential $2.56 billion – Earendil Labs will provide its AI-driven discovery platform to find new therapeutics for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
Innatus Therapeutics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. has synthesized integrin β2 regulators reported to be useful for the treatment of alopecia areata, gouty arthritis, autoimmune hepatitis, inflammatory bowel disease, peritonitis, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjögren’s disease and systemic lupus erythematosus, among others.
Cansino Biologics Inc. has obtained clinical trial approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for the company’s 24-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide conjugate vaccine (CRM197/tetanus toxoid) (PCV24).
Ernexa Therapeutics Inc. has successfully completed a pre-IND meeting with the FDA, setting a pathway toward submitting an IND and initiating a first-in-human trial for the treatment of ovarian cancer, expected in the second half of this year.
Nucleome Therapeutics Ltd. has nominated NTP-464 as its first preclinical development candidate and is advancing the program toward IND-enabling studies. The first-in-class monoclonal antibody agonist for inflammation resolution has broad applicability across major chronic inflammatory diseases.
December 2025 was a big month for announcements from Psithera Inc. The Watertown, Mass.-based newco announced its name change from Psivant Therapeutics, having come out from under the Roivant Sciences Ltd. umbrella – thus the dropping of the “-vant” name. The company also announced a $47.5 million series A financing and disclosed that Eric Shaff had started as the company’s new president and CEO.
Excessive production of pro-inflammatory cytokines or aging-related chronic inflammation disrupts immunity and diminishes the efficacy of vaccines, although the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. Moreover, these pro-inflammatory cytokines are linked to adverse vaccine reactions. These two issues can lead to vaccine hesitancy, resulting in lower vaccination rates.
A review of 2025's noteworthy advances in medical research, including GLP-1 receptor agonists as anti-aging drugs, tumor-agnostic therapies and xenotransplants.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic immune-mediated disease characterized by the destruction of myelin sheaths, neuroaxonal damage, glial cell activation and formation of demyelinated plaques in the CNS. Since MS is considered a prototypic antigen-specific autoimmune disease, restoring immune tolerance to self-antigens is being explored as a therapeutic strategy.
In October, the Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Shimon Sakaguchi, Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell for their discoveries in the field of autoimmunity. As has become typical for the scientific Nobel Prizes, the award-winning research is by now several decades old. But the discoveries were the basis for ongoing research into how to prevent autoimmunity that notched significant wins in 2025, in both basic research and in the clinic.
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