Less than a year after landing a multibillion-dollar deal expansion with partner Gilead Sciences Inc., targeted cancer drug developer Tango Therapeutics Inc. is making moves to go public via a merger with Boxer Capital LLC-sponsored special purpose acquisition company BCTG Acquisition Corp.
“There is a big need for a drug in outpatients. If you could treat them and keep them out of hospitals, that would be important and play a big role in getting us through this pandemic,” Romark Laboratories LC’s CEO, Marc Ayers, told BioWorld.
It has been a challenging opening first quarter for companies developing new therapeutics, with the BioWorld Drug Developers index recording a 9% drop in value, representing a stark contrast to its more than 35% growth last year.
Organoids cultured from patient-derived colorectal cancer cells have been used to demonstrate for the first time that tumors which have developed resistance to the full range of existing treatments, across chemotherapies, targeted therapies and immunotherapies, retain a requirement for Werner helicase (WRN) for survival.
Cross-border startup Scineuro Pharmaceuticals Ltd., which focuses on central nervous system (CNS) diseases, inked a deal with Eli Lilly and Co. to license in the greater China rights of alpha-synuclein-targeted antibody therapies to follow the global drug development trend in this space.
More than a quarter of all biopharma/nonprofit deals and grant awards in 2021, as well as 79% of the disclosed funding, targets the COVID-19 pandemic, following a trend that began in the early months of last year as SARS-CoV-2 reared its ugly head.
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Amylyx, Astrazeneca, Cormedix, Gilead, Moleac, Moleculin, Praxis, Tetra.
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Achieve Life Sciences, Agenus, Aligos, Ardelyx, Ascletis, Astrazeneca, Auris, Endo, Galectin, Gannex, Innocoll, Kyowa Kirin, Moderna, Nervgen, Orphomed, Proqr, Rocket, Romark, Synthetic Biologics and Veracyte.