Ophthalmology company Polyactiva Pty Ltd closed a AU$40 million (US$25 million) series C round to advance late-stage clinical trials in the U.S. of its lead candidate, PA-5108.

“I expressed deep concerns with your nomination, Secretary Kennedy, and somehow, unfortunately, you have exceeded my expectations in the worst possible ways,” U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., told Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Kennedy during a June 24 House subcommittee hearing.

Using informed consent to do what Congress couldn’t, the U.S. FDA is flexing its regulatory authority to halt clinical trials that involve sending cells from American patients to China or other adversarial nations for genetic engineering and subsequent infusion back into the patient.

After years of conversations surrounding indirect research costs, academic groups are now under the gun to quickly come up with an alternative to the NIH’s proposed 15% across-the-board cap on indirect costs and the decades-old university-by-university negotiated rate that can exceed a 50% add-on to a grant.

The Alphafold machine learning system for predicting a protein’s structure from its amino acid sequence has been adapted to make it possible to design de novo proteins that fold in a particular way and bind to prespecified target proteins. The sister system, called Alphadesign, works by generating random strings of amino acids, using Alphafold to predict their structure, and then iteratively optimizing the design.

The 23andme Holding Co.’s saga came full circle with founder Anne Wojcicki regaining control of the bankrupt genetic testing company in a bidding battle against Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Despite the June 9 gutting of the U.S. CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, the Department of Health and Human Services said the committee’s June 25-27 meeting will continue as scheduled. But a new panel has yet to be named, and typically ACIP members have a lot of behind-the-scenes work to do before a meeting.