Lumen Bioscience Inc. plans to use its $11.2 million in series A money – supplemented by $1.8 million in the form of a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy – to explore the use of spirulina in making therapeutic products, CEO and co-founder Brian Finrow told BioWorld Insight.
After Jefferies analyst Peter Welford said in a late August report that Puretech Health plc affiliate Restorbio Inc. was "fast grabbing our attention," investors are paying heed as well, helping the company to a $40 million series B round to advance the immunotherapy RTB-101, a mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) inhibitor, through its phase IIb study and potentially into phase III for reducing the incidence of respiratory tract infections (RTIs) in elderly people.
Phaserx Inc. CEO Robert Overell told BioWorld the firm has paused its lead, preclinical effort in intracellular enzyme replacement therapy (iERT) as the search continues for "a strategic transaction, including a potential merger" to advance the pipeline. "The goal is to get this technology and these programs into the hands of a group who can adequately capitalize it and capitalize on it," he said.
Hopes had not exactly soared high for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s combo pairing the angiopoietin2 (Ang2) antibody nesvacumab with approved Eylea (aflibercept), although "nobody would like it to do a bit more" than Eylea monotherapy, said CEO Leonard Schleifer, referring to chief scientific officer George Yancopoulos, who discovered Ang2. "A lot of people have sort of forgotten that," he said.
American Society of Hematology (ASH) President Kenneth Anderson said that the annual meeting, set for next month in Atlanta, will include plenty more data with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, highlighting the approach's much-celebrated ability to build for patients an "autologous immune army."
Cue Biopharma Inc., which in September filed for an IPO to raise up to $40 million – having only emerged from stealth mode in January – inked a deal with Merck & Co. Inc. that brings an undisclosed up-front payment along with as much as $374 million in research, development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, plus tiered royalties on sales if all goes well.
Sangamo Therapeutics Inc.'s chief medical officer Edward Conner said the first patient to be treated with SB-913 "was clear that he wasn't just looking for help for himself, but he wanted to help future generations of MPS patients as well," and the in vivo genome-editing therapy could do just that for people with mucopolysaccharidosis type II (MPS II), also known as Hunter syndrome.
Exithera Pharmaceuticals Inc. CEO Neil Hayward told BioWorld he's hoping to build a "continuum of care" around factor XIa inhibitor EP-7041, after phase I data showed the intravenous (I.V.) version of the antithrombotic safe and well-tolerated in healthy volunteers after single or multiple ascending intravenous doses – and even turned up some clues to efficacy.
Nektar Therapeutics Inc.'s vice president of clinical development, Mary Tagliaferri, told BioWorld that the compelling objective response rate and impressive disease control rate (DCR) with NKTR-214 when paired with Opdivo (nivolumab) from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) in cancer – along with a clean safety profile and an "antibody-like dosing regimen" once every three weeks – likely put the program in line for accelerated approval.
After the approval last week of Dynavax Technologies Corp.'s Heplisav-B hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine, backers are looking forward to the launch in the first quarter of next year and the meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which can vote to add the vaccine to its "preferred" list for easier coverage by payers.
