Alloy Therapeutics Inc. has entered into an agreement with Abbvie Inc. to develop a new antibody platform to discover antibodies against targets that are difficult to address with current technologies.

Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is a muscle wasting disease caused by aberrant expression of double homeobox protein 4 (DUX4). When DUX4 is activated in skeletal muscle, it triggers myocyte cell death after several transcriptional changes, thus genetic DUX4 silencing arises as a promising approach for treating FHSD.

Acumen Pharmaceuticals Inc. has announced a $35.75 million private placement to advance molecules from its amyloid-β oligomer-selective Enhanced Brain Delivery (EBD) portfolio for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

Sprint Bioscience AB has announced positive results from a preclinical proof-of-concept (POC) study performed within the company’s VRK1 program that showed that VRK1 inhibition selectively kills glioblastoma cells with low VRK2 levels, while cells with normal VRK2 levels are not affected.

Ascletis Pharma Inc. has selected ASC-39, an amylin-selective oral small-molecule amylin receptor agonist, as a clinical development candidate.

A recent study aimed to de novo design mini-protein inhibitors that specifically block the membrane insertion of soluble complement C9. This work, led by researchers from Shandong Second Medical University, applied deep learning-based methods for protein scaffold generation, sequence design and complex structure prediction.