Kurma Partners has announced the first closing of its Biofund IV at €140 million (US$154.5 million) and is pressing ahead to a final close of €250 million this time next year. The fund will make 16 to 20 investments, with half the money due to be invested in novel science that Kurma teases out of academic labs and the remainder in established VC-funded companies. The Paris-based firm is agnostic about which fields or disease areas it invests in and will prospect for breakthrough research anywhere in Europe.
Dark genome miner Enara Bio Ltd. has closed a $32.5 million series B that will see the lead program targeting the first of a novel class of cancer antigens it has discovered through to the clinic. Enara calls these cancer antigens “dark antigens” (the name is trademarked). It says they can be found in solid tumors irrespective of the immune phenotype, and are often expressed at high prevalence across multiple different tumors.
Researchers in the U.K. have succeeded in reverse engineering the defective cryptic splicing that drives amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) to enable precisely targeted delivery of transgenes and therapeutic protein expression in diseased neurons. The technique is compatible with conventional adeno-associated viral vectors that are approved for gene therapy, and can readily be adapted for different transgenes. ALS, FTD and other neurogenerative diseases are underpinned by loss of function of the RNA-binding protein TDP-43 (transactive response DNA-binding protein 43), that normally functions as a key regulator of splicing, protecting the transcriptome from toxic cryptic exons.
Dark genome miner Enara Bio Ltd. has closed a $32.5 million series B that will see the lead program targeting the first of a novel class of cancer antigens it has discovered through to the clinic. Enara calls these cancer antigens “dark antigens” (the name is trademarked). It says they can be found in solid tumors irrespective of the immune phenotype, and are often expressed at high prevalence across multiple different tumors.
Resolution Therapeutics Ltd. is preparing for a phase I/II trial of its autologous engineered macrophage cell therapy, RTX-001, in the treatment of end-stage liver disease and has raised £63.5 million (US$83.3 million) to complete the study and to add further fibrotic and inflammatory disease programs to its portfolio. Recruitment to the study, to be conducted at 15 sites in Spain and the U.K., is due to start before the end of 2024, with the monocyte-derived patient macrophages being processed and modified at a facility in Edinburgh.
Loqus23 Therapeutics Ltd. has raised £35 million (US$46.6 million) in a series A to take forward small molecules it has discovered for the treatment of Huntington’s disease and other conditions that are driven by DNA mismatch repair (MMR). MMR fixes DNA insertions, deletions and misincorporation errors that occur during transcription and/or cellular replication. Smaller repairs are directed by MutSalpha, a protein that binds single base mismatches, while MutSbeta handles larger insertion/deletion loops. Huntington’s and other triplet repeat diseases are caused when trinucleotide repeats accumulate in somatic DNA to the extent that they interfere with protein expression.
Spanish VC firm Asabys Partners has closed its second fund at €180 million (US$201.3 million), to be invested in seed to series B rounds in 12 to 15 biotech, med-tech and digital health companies.
Spanish VC firm Asabys Partners has closed its second fund at €180 million (US$201.3 million), to be invested in seed to series B rounds in 12 to 15 biotech, med-tech and digital health companies.
The FDA has approved Cobenfy, a dual M1/M4 muscarinic agonist that offers a fundamentally different approach to treating schizophrenia. The fixed dose combination of xanomeline-trospium is the first to act via a novel mechanism for the serious psychiatric disorder in over 50 years, finally expanding the treatment options beyond dopamine-targeted therapies. Bristol Myers Squibb Co., which acquired Cobenfy developer Karuna Therapeutics Inc. for $14 billion in a deal that closed in March 2024, said the drug will be available in the U.S. from late October.
Nine years on from securing $3.84 million for a phase I clinical trial to test the formulation, with results showing it overcame side effects that had confounded its forerunner, the schizophrenia treatment Karxt met its PDUFA date Sept. 26 with no decision by midday. If approved, the fixed combination of xanomeline-trospium will be the first in a new drug class, and as a dual M1/M4 muscarinic agonist, the first new therapy to act via a novel mechanism for the serious psychiatric disorder in over 50 years.
