Purespring Therapeutics Ltd. has raised £80 million (US$104.6 million) in a series B, putting it on course to be the first to take a gene therapy for a kidney disease into the clinic. The money enables the company to move the lead program, PS-002, for the treatment of IgA nephropathy to clinical proof of concept and advance programs in other complement-mediated kidney diseases, and in an undisclosed glomerular kidney disease. Read More
The U.S. FDA has issued yet another complete response letter (CRL) for dasiglucagon, a glucagon receptor agonist, being developed by Zealand Pharma A/S for treating congenital hyperinsulinism, an ultra-rare disease that is also being targeted by at least two other companies. This CRL is pegged to the timing of a third-party manufacturing facility reinspection that was done in August and September. The agency also wants some additional clinical analysis from the phase III study. Read More
David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper share the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their contributions to the science of protein structure. David Baker was awarded half the prize “for computational protein design,” according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Hassabis and Jumper shared the other half “for protein structure prediction.” Read More
With confidence dropping in doing business with China-affiliated life sciences companies due to the Biosecure Act, one of the companies explicitly named in the U.S. legislation is fighting back. Raising the possibility of a constitutional challenge to the bill, Rade Drmanac, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Complete Genomics Inc., wrote to congressional leaders to urge them to remove the California-based subsidiary of MGI from the bill. Read More
The Japanese government is throwing full weight behind the Bioeconomy Strategy initiative to position Japan’s biopharmaceutical industry as both a key driver of economic growth and global drug discovery hub. Read More
SK Bioscience Co. Ltd., of Seongnam-si, South Korea, said Oct. 8 that it will acquire a $3 million stake in Fina Biosolutions LLC to become the first and sole strategic investor of the Rockville, Md.-based vaccine specialist. For SK Bioscience, the investment is slated to boost its vaccine R&D capabilities, the company said, which currently includes manufacturing of pneumococcal and typhoid conjugate vaccines. Read More
Gene and cell therapies will drive innovation for the next 10 years, Claus Zieler, the chief commercial officer at Astellas Pharma Inc., said in this episode of the BioWorld Insider podcast. Developers are on the cusp of breakthroughs because a gene can now be replaced “and that means we can potentially cure a disease rather than intervening in a disease.” Read More
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Biogen, Blue Earth, Gilead, GSK, Kiromic, Merck & Co., PTC, Relief, Sage, Satsuma, Vincerx. Read More
Biopharma happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Aosaikang, Autonomous, Bayer, Black Diamond, Innovent, Lipocine, Mink, Moma, Pharmalink, Pharmanovia, Siga, Tonix, Zambon. Read More
