Given the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee’s unanimous vote last month to recommend use of a booster dose of the Pfizer Inc.-Biontech SE COVID-19 vaccine in certain high-risk groups, it came as no surprise when the committee again voted unanimously Oct. 14 for a mirror use of Moderna Inc.’s proposed booster. Read More
Jonathan Moore, who was employee No. 36 when he came to Vertex Inc. in 1990 and ended up spending the next 28 years at the company, realized he wasn’t done with his work in ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters and has now formed Rectify Pharmaceuticals Inc. The new company just closed on a $100 million series A financing to fund development of a pipeline of therapies to restore ABC transporter function for treating genetic diseases. Read More
Tentarix Biotherapeutics LP broke cover with $50 million in series A funding to take forward an industrialized flow cytometry platform that enables it to screen rapidly for multifunctional antibody-based drugs. Read More
DUBLIN – Abalos Therapeutics GmbH raised €32.5 million (US$37.6 million) in a series A extension, taking the total raise to €43 million, enough to enable the company to generate clinical proof-of-concept data with its lead viral immunotherapy for cancer. Read More
PTC Therapeutics Inc. is already established as a player in rare diseases, working with Roche Holding AG to develop and market Evrysdi (risdiplam) to treat certain patients with spinal muscular atrophy. With Evrysdi now approved in the U.S. and Europe, and Translarna (ataluren) approved in Europe for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, South Plainfield, N.J.-based PTC is approaching a crucial juncture with its first gene therapy product. Read More
Recent news that The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is teaming up with Schrödinger Inc. to work on the latter’s WEE1 inhibitor – along with data disclosed at the 2021 meeting of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) – shone a light on the gatekeeper checkpoint kinase, which a number of players are busy exploring, though nothing in the class has been approved so far. Read More
LONDON – After the hard, solitary slog through months of pandemic, U.K. biotech finally convened in person, buoyed by the contribution the sector has made to dealing with COVID-19, and evidently pleased to be face-to-face once more. Read More
Biopharmas raising money in public or private financings, including: Alto, Anticancer, Bone, Cidara, Immunoprecise, Innocan, Maia, Osmotica, Petros, Sarepta and Topelia. Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Adocia, Algernon, Asieris, Beigene, Blade, Cantargia, Eli Lilly, Homology, Kadimastem, Lundbeck, Merck, Otsuka, Pharmather, Regeneron, Revance, Roche, Sanofi, Sorrento, Viridian. Read More
