The best news in biotech w/c June 10

We're bringing you this edition early as I will be on the beach in sunny Spain next week! ☀️

That said, this week has been PACKED full of biotech good news. Buckle in for deals, raises, IPOs, clinical readouts, an industry temperature check and some exciting new science.

🤝 Deals deals deals…

• Flagship Pioneering and ProFound Therapeutics named obesity as their first target as part of a multi-billion dollar multi- indication collaboration with Pfizer Link
• AbbVie is the latest big pharma to arrive at the anti-TL1A party with a $150M upfront / $1.5B biobucks deal with FutureGen Biopharmaceutical for an IBD antibody candidate Link
• GSK will pay Ochre Bio $37.5M for a computational biology collaboration to pinpoint the drivers of liver disease Link
• Relay Therapeutics announced a clinical trial collaboration with Pfizer to test its lead PI3Kα inhibitor in combination with Pfizer's atirmociclib in a phase 1 study. Link

🚀 Private raises...

• Santa Ana Bio, Inc. raised $168M in a combined Series A & B with 3 preclinical programs for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. A very notable 9 figure raise for a preclinical biotech! Link
• Alzheon, Inc. | Preserving Future Memories raised $100m in a Series E to advance a phase 3 early Alzheimer's program Link
• Bright Peak Therapeutics raised $90M in a Series C to advance a PD1-IL18 immunoconjugate therapeutic into a phase 1/2a cancer trial Link
• Syntis Bio launched with a $15.5M seed to develop a non-GLP-1 once daily obesity therapy designed to mimic the effects of gastric bypass surgery Link
• Amber Therapeutics raised $100M in a series A to advance a neuromodulation therapy for urinary incontinence towards FDA approval. Link

After a slow start to June, that's more like it!

👀 IPO News...

Companies with differentiated data and platforms continue to take advantage of the open IPO market.

• Following on from the positive FSHD data, Avidity Biosciences, Inc. then announced the price of a $400m IPO expected to close on June 17th! Link
• Not content with the $259M series C raised only in March, Alumis now plans to raise a yet to be disclosed amount in an IPO to accelerate its TYK2 pipeline of immunology therapeutics Link

📈 Positive clinical readouts... 

• Shanghai Junshi Biosciences Co Ltd and Coherus BioSciences ' antibody therapeutic Loqtorzi met 2 primary goals in a phase 3 trial of first-line patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and looks set for approval Link
• Ipsen and GENFIT gained accelerated FDA approval for Iqirvo as a first-in-class PPAR treatment for primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), a chronic autoimmune condition Link
• Ultragenyx and Mereo BioPharma released positive phase 2 data for setrusumab (UX143) showing a reduction in fracture rates for patients with Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) Link
• Avidity Biosciences, Inc. antibody-oligo conjugate therapeutic demonstrated a safe profile and was tied to functional improvement among people with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) in a phase 1/2 trial Link
• NodThera's NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitor showed both anti-obesity and anti-inflammatory potential in a phase 1b/2a trial Link
• Oculis announced positive phase 2b data for its dry eye precision antibody therapy and outlines plans for a phase 3 trial Link

💉 Movement in the vaccines space...

• CSL Seqirus signed an agreement with the European Commission to provide pre-pandemic bird flu vaccines to the EU Link

• GSK received label expansion of its RSV vaccine into a slightly younger pool of adults (down from age 60 to 50), strengthening its foothold in the space Link
• After prior setbacks, Moderna 's flu/COVID combo showed improved immune responses vs licensed comparators in a phase 3 trial Link. Moderna also announced positive phase 3 data for its next gen COVID vaccine Link

🌡️ Industry temperature check...

With lays off announcements seeming to never end, this week's industry temperature check brings some much needed positive outlook.

• In more positive news, GlobalData Healthcare reported that the biopharma industry is showing increased optimism regarding its growth prospects over the next 12 months with a gradual decline in inflation providing a more stable environment for biotech funding Link
• This comes as Foresite Capital announced a $900M fund to invest in companies at the boarder of tech and biotech, with CEO Jim Tananbaum calling this “one of the best biotech investment environments” of his multidecade career Link
• It's not all lay offs and doom and gloom. Kyowa Kirin International plc. announced board approval for construction of new biologics manufacturing plant in Sanford, NC, investing up to $530M to build a 171,000 sq ft facility Link

💡 Cool science of the week...

Great paper from Smriti P. & Xin (Daniel) Gao of the David R. Liu lab at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard demonstrating how phage-assisted continuous evolution enhances prime-editing-assisted site-specific integrase gene editing (PASSIGE). This enables the programmability of Prime Editing whilst also leveraging the ability of recombinases to precisely integrate large DNA cargoes exceeding 10 kilobases, achieving incredibly efficient targeted integration of genes in mammalian cells. Link to full paper

That's all for this week. Subscribe for alerts to the latest positive news in the industry ⬇️🔔