Orca Bio Inc.’s $192 million series D brings the company out of stealth and openly into the business of transforming allogeneic cell therapies. The new funding brings Orca’s total capital raised since 2016 to nearly $300 million. Read More
DUBLIN – Lassen Therapeutics Inc. is following the Enleofen Bio Pte Ltd. playbook by targeting the interleukin-11 receptor (IL-11R) as a novel approach to combating both fibrosis and cancer. It’s a move that paid off handsomely earlier this year for Singapore-based Enleofen, which entered a broad alliance in fibrosis with Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, which could generate up to $1 billion in milestones for each product emanating from the partnership. San Diego-based Lassen is now laying claim to that space as well and has just emerged from stealth mode, having closed but not previously disclosed a $31 million series A round.
In a step toward what may become the new normal, at least for now, the Pediatric Oncology Subcommittee of the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee is meeting virtually Wednesday and Thursday to review pediatric development plans for four cancer drugs. Read More
Four years after the EMA first approved Novartis AG's Ilaris (canakinumab) for the treatment of adult-onset Still’s disease (AOSD), the FDA has followed suit, giving it a green light in the indication following a priority review. The rare rheumatic condition usually affects younger adults and can occur as infrequently as once, but also intermittently or chronically. Read More
By targeting chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) to a senescence marker, researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have developed a CAR T cell that had beneficial effects in mouse models of both liver fibrosis and lung cancer. Read More
BEIJING – Chinese state-backed vaccine developer China National Biotec Group (CNBG), of Beijing, said on Tuesday night that its inactivated COVID-19 vaccine candidate produced a seroconversion rate of up to 100% in a phase I/II trial that enrolled 1,120 healthy subjects. Read More
New hires and promotions in the biopharma industry, including: Abeona, Dewpoint, Edgewise, Erasca, Fergene, Novavax, Rentschler, Valneva, Xilio. Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Aclaris, Curevac, Foundation Medicine, Hookipa, Ipsen, Kamada, Merck, Nanobiotix, Novartis, PTC, Reneuron, TG. Read More
