Bayer AG has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with Dewpoint Therapeutics Inc. for a heart disease program to treat dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients characterized by specific mutations.
The FDA has granted orphan drug designation to Modalis Therapeutics Corp.’s MDL-101, a novel epigenetic editing therapy being developed for the treatment of congenital muscular dystrophy type 1a (LAMA2-CMD), a severe, early-onset muscular dystrophy caused by the absence of the LAMA2 protein.
Cancer Research UK and Kisoji Biotechnology Inc. have signed an agreement to bring Kisoji's naked anti-TROP2 antibody, KJ-103, into a first-in-human trial. KJ-103 is a single domain antibody that binds to a unique epitope on TROP2.
The abscopal effect occurs when therapy leads to the regression of metastases distant from the target tumor. In the current study, researchers from INSERM aimed to evaluate the abscopal effect potentially inducted by the use the targeted radionuclide therapy (TRT) candidate, [131I]ICF-01012, which has been previously shown to target only pigmented metastases.
Currently, cancer therapy trial-and-error methodology is inefficient and unsustainable. Oncology is the worst therapeutic area for drug trial success; only 3.4% of drugs that enter phase I end up being FDA approved, and 57% fail due to poor drug efficacy in trials. Building tools that may aid in predicting an individual’s response to a specific therapy may help in reducing costs, guesswork, and importantly improve the outcome of patients and accelerate new drug development.
Modifi Biosciences Inc. has come a long way very quickly. Spun out of Yale University in 2021, it published data on DNA in Science in July 2022, and now it’s being acquired by Merck & Co. Inc. for $30 million up front. Ultimately, Modifi shareholders could receive milestones of up to $1.3 billion.
Additional early-stage research and drug discovery news in brief, from: Ariceum Therapeutics, Betterlife Pharma, Circle Pharma, Epicrispr Biotechnologies, Generation Bio, Oric Pharmaceuticals, Orna Therapeutics.
Aliad Biopharma Co. Ltd. has described compounds acting as autophagy inducers and mTOR complex 2 (mTORC2) inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, among others.
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