Xanadu Bio, a Yale University spinout developing an intranasal SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine booster, has secured an exclusive license from the school for a polymeric nanoparticle delivery platform to support the project. The delivery tech could potentially have future applications for influenza, respiratory syncytial virus and even cystic fibrosis.

“The premise of our whole company is that we target molecular machines, but we don’t target the engine,” Adrian Schomburg told BioWorld. Instead, “we interfere with the throttle and other highly specific controls of these machines.” “We,” in this case, is Eisbach Bio GmbH, a German startup that is developing anticancer programs aimed at exploiting synthetic lethality by targeting helicases. Founded in 2019, the company has three programs, a recently announced collaboration with MD Anderson Cancer Center in oncology, and another program in COVID-19.

PERTH, Australia – After raising AU$7.5 million (US$5.4 million) in a private placement, biopharma company Servatus Ltd. is advancing its microbial biotherapeutics clinical programs targeting serious autoimmune conditions. The Coolum, Queensland-based private company is focused on identifying and developing live microbial biotherapeutics and engineered proteins to treat chronic and autoimmune diseases, as well as non-antibiotic treatments for bacterial infections.

Following Philip Morris International Inc.’s controversial takeover of respiratory drug firm Vectura plc, British American Tobacco plc (BAT) is also making inroads into medical research with U.K.-based Kbio Holdings Ltd., a biotech focused on plant-based medicine.

A new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered drug discovery startup, Protai Bio, has emerged from stealth mode following an $8 million seed round led by Grove Ventures and Pitango Healthtech that will see the new company develop a platform to accelerate drug discovery.

LONDON – The global pandemic has put the term mRNA on lips worldwide, but vaccines apart, the field of RNA therapeutics has failed to overcome the problem of delivery and is stuck at first base, targeting the liver. Newco Sixfold Bioscience Ltd. is the latest company working to end this constraint, applying a mixture of computation and advanced chemistry to design tissue-specific RNA delivery systems.

LONDON – Newco Loqus23 Therapeutics Ltd. has closed a £7 million (US$9.4 million) extension of its seed round, providing the means to progress its lead small-molecule program in Huntington’s disease through lead optimization. The extended round, from the Novartis Venture Fund and the U.K. government-backed Dementia Discovery Fund, follows an initial seed investment of £4.5 million by DDF in 2019, that was not made public at the time.

DUBLIN – Sisaf Ltd. has exercised an option on an Italian preclinical program to treat a rare bone disorder, autosomal dominant osteopetrosis type 2, with an siRNA molecule, which it will deliver with its in-house Bio-courier technology.

LONDON – Four decades of academic research at the University of California, San Francisco, is to be translated through to the clinic with funding from a €1 million (US$1.2 million) European Commission grant. The money, awarded to a Dutch/German consortium will fund the generation and optimization of antibodies designed to neutralize oxidized phospholipids that mediate inflammatory changes in a swathe of diseases. The consortium that won the Eurostars award is led by Oxitope Pharma BV.

DUBLIN – Sapreme Technologies BV is taking a novel approach to the extraordinary inefficiency of intracellular delivery of macromolecular drugs by developing a series of compounds that can dramatically improve the rate with which drugs such as proteins and oligonucleotides can escape the endosome.