Biotech News

This week, German big pharma Bayer announced a €3.5B takeover of Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, a well known US gene therapy specialist. This is only one of many examples of the funding windfall experienced by the gene therapy field in 2020.  Despite the difficulties posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 has been a good year for gene therapy. In the first half of the year, funding of gene and cell therapy companies was up 103% compared to the same period in 2019 according to a report from the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. This year, there have been some notable European successes on the fundraising front in gene therapy such as the €106M Series C and €134M Nasdaq IPO of UK-based biotech Freeline Therapeutics.  CRISPR Therapeutics, co-founded by recent Nobel prize winner and CRISPR technology pioneer Emmanuelle Charpentier, also launched on the Nasdaq in July, raising €400M. Similarly, earlier this month, French ophthalmic biotech SparingVision raised €44.5M in financing. “I think there are various aspects leading to this increase in investments,” says Peter Nell, CBO and Head of Therapeutics at CRISPR-focused biotech Mammoth Biosciences — which was co-founded by Jennifer Doudna who shared this year’s Nobel prize for Chemistry with Charpentier.  “While the initial attention to gene therapy in the 1990s was shut off by several scientific drawbacks, The post Bayer’s AskBio Acquisition Strong Statement For Gene Therapy in Europe appeared first on Labiotech.eu.

A study monitoring board flagged a "potential safety signal" in some hospitalized COVID-19 patients who require breathing support, telling the biotech to modify its study protocol.

The Boston startup's initial public offering is the fourth-largest in biotech this year, according to data compiled by BioPharma Dive.

A longer-than-expected timeline for developing a new manufacturing process means a key study for Axovant's top gene therapy likely won't begin until 2022.

Regeneron hit by 'safety signal' for COVID-19 cocktail as data board tells pharma to stop enrolling sicker patients badams Fri, 10/30/2020 - 09:30

How understanding breast cancer heterogeneity could point to new drug targets arlene.weintraub Fri, 10/30/2020 - 09:20

Training the innate immune system to fight cancer aliu Fri, 10/30/2020 - 09:05

Astellas cuts Potenza anti-TIGIT asset in quarterly cull badams Fri, 10/30/2020 - 08:44

Golumbeski, Hasnain join Vertex Ventures as executive advisers ntaylor Fri, 10/30/2020 - 07:53

Novo Nordisk scraps Type 1 diabetes drug after phase 2 trial ntaylor Fri, 10/30/2020 - 06:58

In the past few months, we’ve seen major fundraises and partnerships from European biotechs that develop cancer cell therapies based on a type of immune cell called natural killer cells. This continuing progress could one day result in off-the-shelf cell therapies for cancer. T-cell immunotherapies like CAR T-cell therapy have revolutionized cancer treatment in recent times. However, they have a significant disadvantage. The patient needs to get their immune T cells extracted, engineered to target the tumor, and infused again. This approach is costly and takes weeks — a luxury that many cancer patients can’t afford. Also, the cells extracted are often of variable quality, making it harder to produce an effective cell therapy. Natural killer cells — a key part of the innate immune system — could provide an answer to many of the disadvantages of current cancer immunotherapies.  Like T cells, natural killer cells can be engineered to better recognize a specific tumor. But they have a couple of advantages. One is that they can detect more chemical signals of tumors than T cells. Another is that they are less prone to attacking healthy tissue than T cells are. This means it’s possible to give patients natural killer cell therapies derived from healthy donors with less risk of the foreign cells attacking the patient’s body.  The post European Cancer Deals Increasingly Focus on Natural Killer Cells appeared first on Labiotech.eu.

Bellicum shares nose-dive on poor CAR-T data, program pause—company axes 79% of staffers badams Fri, 10/30/2020 - 05:21

A seroprevalance study of 15,591 children in Bavaria, published October 28th in Med, revealed a six-fold greater prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus than reported cases.

Every week there are numerous scientific studies published. Here’s a look at some of the more interesting ones.

Q32 Bio rakes in $60 million Series B as they dose their first patient in IL-7R antibody trial.

AbCellera and Kodiak Sciences have announced a new partnership to create and develop therapeutic antibodies for ophthalmologic indications. The two companies originally entered a partnership in August 2016.

There is an impressive amount of technological ingenuity – mRNA, monoclonal antibodies and more traditional formats – being thrown at the development of a vaccine against COVID-19.

AstraZeneca is divesting two cardiovascular drugs to Germany’s Cheplapharm Arzneimittel GmbH for $400 million, which will allow the UK pharma giant to reinvest in its main therapy areas.

Biopharma and life sciences companies strengthen their leadership teams and boards with these Movers & Shakers.

Thursday afternoon, Bellicum announced it will pause the development of its BCMA GoCAR-NK program and will also discontinue discovery research and new product development.

The positive findings were shared as part of the company’s Emergency Use Authorization submission for its investigational COVID-19 therapy.

Novo Nordisk announced today that it has ended its development of the anti-IL-21 antibody NN9828 in combination with Victoza. The decision was made after analyzing Phase II clinical trial data in patients with Type 1 diabetes.

The decision to halt critically ill patients was made in response to Regeneron’s independent safety board finding a potential safety signal and an unfavorable risk-benefit profile of the monoclonal antibody therapy in a subgroup of patients requiring high-flow oxygen or mechanical ventilation.

Fauci said the first COVID-19 vaccines could ship late December or early January.

The U.S. – and global – response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been volatile at best. This is fair, considering that SARS-CoV-2 is a novel virus with a lethality we haven’t seen in more than a century.