Magnet Biomedicine Inc. emerged from stealth mode and pulled down a $50 million series A round co-led by founding investor Newpath Partners alongside Arch Venture Partners. The firm is advancing molecular glue discovery by way of rational selection and design, looking past known protein-protein interactions and what Magnet calls “tangential” degradation approaches to analyze the broader protein landscape and ultimately pair targets with rationally chosen presenters in the tissue where the disease manifests. Read More
A Sept. 21 U.S. FDA advisory committee meeting will either be a “Hail Mary” or a last gasp of life for ITCA-650, a twice-yearly implantable exenatide-device combination product intended to improve glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes. Read More
Starpharma Holdings Ltd.'s nanoscale drug delivery technology shows enhanced safety and durable responses in phase II trials compared to standard of care therapies in patients with advanced colorectal and ovarian cancer. Read More
Airna Corp. Inc. has launched through a $30 million financing to develop a pipeline of RNA editing therapeutics for treating rare diseases and prevalent diseases. It’s a wide spectrum of diseases made potentially more easily treatable because of the relatively recent revolution in RNA editing. Read More
Having cast around for other routes, Histogen Inc. is throwing in the towel, its board having adopted a shutdown plan that includes the distribution of remaining cash to stockholders after a wind-down of operations. One of the company’s West Coast peers, Kinnate Biopharma Inc., had news, too. The firm disclosed the layoff of 70% of its workforce, including all employees at the Shanghai-based subsidiary Kinnjiu Biopharma Inc., leaving the outfit with 28 full timers. Read More
Proteome analysis with artificial intelligence has made it possible to create a catalog of all possible missense mutations in the human genome to predict diseases. The new Alphamissense tool from the technology company Google Deepmind, available online, will allow scientists to refine diagnoses and design more tailored treatment strategies for patients suffering from pathologies associated with these variants. Read More
Developers of combination products face an unusual dilemma in their interactions with the U.S. FDA, given that the data for the constituent products reside in multiple product centers. Some of the related clunkiness may soon be a thing of the past thanks to a new four-year proposal to overhaul the FDA’s information technology infrastructure, which among other things will emphasize a more seamless sharing of data across centers, precisely the kind of initiative that would facilitate reviews of combination products. Read More
New hires and promotions in the biopharma industry, including: Acepodia, Aitia, Anaptysbio, Apnimed, Compass Pathways, Immunos, Lobe Sciences, Rentschler, Tempest, Thermosome, Tikomed. Read More
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Aclaris, Anthos, Cantex, Cassava, Eloxx, Essa, Kiora, Kite, Linkinvax, Moleculin, Omeicos, Rani, Tracon, Vaccitech. Read More
Biopharma happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Accord Healthcare, Astellas, Beigene, Dyadic, Evaxion, Fermbox, Ligand, Novartis, Pelican, Primordial, Primrose. Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Contrafect, Daiichi Sankyo, Eirgenix, Galera, GSK, Kymera, Lantern, Lapix, Orchard, Osmol, Redhill, Sandoz. Read More
