"Nobody has done this before," Visterra Inc. CEO Brian Pereira told BioWorld, talking about the company's approach in immunoglobulin A (IgA) nephropathy, an effort that is part of what fueled his company's just-finished $46.7 million series C financing. Using computational tools and methods from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Visterra is "not an antibody discovery company," he said. "We design and engineer novel antibody-based solutions" that include monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), bispecific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). Read More
LONDON – Scientists in China have developed a chemical method to precisely edit single bases in DNA, and they used the technique in human embryos to correct a mutation in the beta globin gene that is a major cause of inherited blood disorder beta thalassemia. Read More
Windmil Therapeutics Inc., a startup harnessing the power of bone marrow-infiltrating lymphocytes, or MILs, for cancer immunotherapy, has nearly completed enrollment of patients in a phase IIb trial testing its approach in high-risk myeloma. Read More
A new Indian study showing that selectively targeting signal-regulating proteins with intrabodies provides a novel means of fine-tuning G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) functions has important implications for new drug development. Read More
LONDON – French startup Depixus SAS is poised to commercialize a new sequencing technology that in addition to decoding the bases of DNA and RNA is able to decipher dynamic epigenetic information. Read More
Eleven Biotherapeutics Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., filed with the SEC to raise $12.5 million in a public offering. The number of shares and share price have not yet been disclosed. Proceeds are expected to fund clinical development of Vicinium, a locally administered targeted protein therapeutic, and for general corporate purposes. H.C. Wainwright & Co. is acting as the sole book-running manager. Shares of Eleven (NASDAQ:EBIO) closed Thursday at $1.51, down 8 cents. Read More
Checkpoint Therapeutics Inc., of New York, and TG Therapeutics Inc., also of New York, said they dosed the first patient in a phase I trial testing anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody CK-301 in checkpoint therapy-naïve patients with selected recurrent or metastatic cancers. The trial will measure the safety and tolerability as well as the pharmacokinetics, immunogenicity and preliminary efficacy of the drug. Checkpoint plans to provide clinical updates on the study in the first half of 2018. The two companies have been working together since 2015. Read More
Alvogen Inc., of Pine Brook, N.J., and Synthon NV, of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, said they concluded the decentralized procedures for glatiramer acetate 40 mg/ml pre-filled syringe for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis and have received regulatory approval in Europe. The three-times-a-week drug is a therapeutically equivalent version of the originator medicine Copaxone (glatiramer acetate, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.). A once-daily subcutaneous 20-mg/ml prefilled syringe already is marketed in Europe under the brand name Remurel. Read More
