IMU Biosciences Ltd. has closed its series A at £40 million (US$53.9 million), adding £28.5 million to the initial close in January 2024, and bringing the total raised since the company’s formation in 2021 to £45 million. Since that first close, IMU has built what is claimed as the world’s largest high-definition immune system dataset, with almost 25,000 profiles of healthy volunteers and disease-specific patient cohorts. Read More

Researchers from Ospedale San Raffaele presented the preclinical characterization of SR-1891, a long-acting capsid assembly modulator (CAM) in models of chronic hepatitis B. In Hepa D38 cells, the compound exhibited EC50 and EC90 values of 0.2 and 0.8 nM, respectively, without any detectable cytotoxicity. Read More

Montara Therapeutics Inc. has been awarded a research grant of approximately $1 million from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) to advance a Brainonly therapy targeting mTOR for Parkinson’s disease. Read More

CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. has obtained clinical trial clearance from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for SYS-6063, an mRNA-LNP-based dual-target CAR T-cell injection for the treatment of relapsed or refractory systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Read More

Tavo Biotherapeutics Inc. has successfully closed a $17 million series A financing, with the proceeds directed to advancing the company’s pipeline of innovative therapies targeting glaucoma and retinal disease. Read More

Adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL), a central mediator of triglyceride hydrolysis and fatty acid mobilization, modulates hepatic lipid homeostasis and metabolic signaling pathways that contribute to the activation of fibrogenic responses. Read More

There is a growing consensus that alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) should be considered a metabolic disorder under the influence of the gut-liver axis. Metabolome data have highlighted fatty acid-activated G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) as the main affected pathways, where the relationship of G-protein-coupled receptor 119 (GPR119) with ALD remains unexplored. Read More

Transforming growth factor-β-activated kinase 1 (TAK1) is a crucial central signaling molecule of hepatic cell death, inflammation and fibrogenesis through NF-κB and MAPK in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). Its pharmacological inhibition using the TAK1 inhibitor HS-276 was tested in vivo in a murine model of diet-induced MASLD. Read More

Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) has disclosed new 1H-benzo[d]imidazole derivatives acting as calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase type II (CAMK2) inhibitors potentially useful for the treatment of anxiety disorders, asthma, cardiomyopathy, diabetes, fibrosis, heart failure, hypertension and allergy, among others. Read More

Synnovation Therapeutics Inc. has identified new heterocyclic poly(ADP-ribose) glycohydrolase (PARG) inhibitors described as useful for the treatment of cancer. Read More

Chomix Biotech (Nanjing) Co. Ltd. has patented new irreversible fibroblast activation protein-α (FAPα) inhibitors potentially useful for the diagnosis or treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis, cancer, myocardial infarction, kidney fibrosis, pulmonary and hepatic fibrosis, and among others. Read More

Sichuan Kelun-Biotech Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd. has reported new proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTACs) compounds comprising a cereblon E3 ubiquitin ligase-binding moiety covalently linked to a eukaryotic peptide chain release factor GTP-binding subunit ERF3A (GSPT1)-targeting moiety potentially useful for the treatment of cancer. Read More

Changchun Genescience Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. has discovered new ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase 30 (USP30) inhibitors potentially useful for the treatment of mitochondrial and Parkinson’s disease. Read More