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.

Developing the next generation of antibiotics is proving to be a major problem, with research reaching an almost standstill due to a lack of funding because of the poor return on R&D investment from the products.

LONDON – The scientific pioneer behind T-cell receptors has taken the helm of a new biotech he believes has the technology to overcome current shortcomings of cancer immunotherapy. Bent Jakobsen, co-founder and long-term chief scientific officer of Immunocore plc and of CAR T-cell specialist Adaptimmune plc, is now CEO of Accession Therapeutics Ltd., set up to develop what is claimed as the first oncolytic virus to be genetically engineered to exclusively infect cancer cells.

LONDON – A significant body of research indicates inhibition of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (PTP) would reduce neuroinflammation and protect neurons, but the difficulty of finding inhibitors that cross the blood-brain barrier to regulate the pore has left the therapeutic potential largely untapped.

Binhui Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd.’s BS-001, a recombinant human oncolytic herpes simplex virus type-2 expressing GM-CSF for the potential treatment of solid tumors, has gained an IND approval from the FDA. The development marks the first oncolytic viral candidate developed by a Chinese company to win a go-ahead for trials abroad, it said.

Finding a functional cure to HIV is one of the biggest challenges in modern medicine, a task made so much tougher because of the virus’s ability to incorporate itself permanently into a host’s genome. But Diaccurate SAB, of Paris, thinks it may have a solution – and it’s all down to a discovery showing that the virus seems to make crucial immune CD4 cells go “bumpy”, lose their function and die.

LONDON – Newco Macomics Ltd. has closed its first financing round at £7.4 million (US$10.3 million), enabling it to lay the ground for a new approach to addressing immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment by modulating disease-specific macrophages.

LONDON – Mestag Therapeutics Ltd. has closed a hefty $45 million seed round to advance development of antibodies targeting activated fibroblasts, in the treatment of cancer and immune diseases.

With a special interest in neurological disorders, Hopstem Biotechnology Co. Ltd. closed a series A++ round to raise nearly ¥100 million (US$15.5 million) to advance hNPC-01, an off-the-shelf induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC)-derived human forebrain neural progenitor cell product to treat chronic conditions caused by stroke and traumatic brain injuries.

LONDON – Hemab ApS has closed a $55 million series A to take forward treatments for bleeding and thrombosis disorders based on antibodies in-licensed from Novo Nordisk A/S, where the newco’s founder, Johan Henrik Faber, previously led hemophilia drug research.