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— Cancer immunology programs launched from Versant’s Inception Discovery Engine —

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Tempest Therapeutics Inc., a development-stage biotechnology company advancing small molecules that modulate anti-tumor immunity pathways, today announced the completion of a $70 million Series B financing led by founding investor Versant Ventures and by F-Prime Capital Partners and Quan Capital. The syndicate also includes Lilly Asia Ventures, Foresite Capital and Eight Roads Ventures.

“We are strong believers in the promise of small molecule therapeutics that target immune cells in the tumor microenvironment,” said Brad Bolzon, managing director and chair of Versant and Tempest. “With a portfolio of several high-quality drug candidates and an experienced management team, Tempest is well-positioned to introduce new therapies for multiple malignancies.”

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HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, China, March 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Hua Medicine, a clinical-stage drug development company developing novel therapies for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes, announced the closing of a combined Series D & Series E financing of US$ 117.4 million.  The financing included new investors Blue Pool Capital Limited, GIC Private Limited, AVICT Global, 6 Dimensions Capital, Adrian Cheng (via K11 Investments), Ping An Ventures, Mirae Asset Financial Group and certain healthcare funds managed by a leading US investment management firm, as well as existing investors ARCH Venture Partners, Eight Roads, F-Prime Capital Partners, Venrock, WuXi AppTec Corporate Ventures, Ally Bridge Group, Harvest Investments, co-founders and management.  The financing is expected to fully fund the Company through completion of its two Phase 3 trials and commercial launch in China for Dorzagliatin (HMS5552), a new first-in-class, 4th-generation glucokinase activator (GKA) that treats the impaired blood glucose sensor function, and thereby seeks to address the underlying cause of Type 2 diabetes.

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Surface Oncology, a clinical-stage biotech developing next generation antibody cancer therapies, filed on Friday with the SEC to raise up to $75 million in an initial public offering.

The Cambridge, MA-based company was founded in 2014 and booked $13 million in sales for the 12 months ended December 31, 2017. It plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol SURF. Surface Oncology filed confidentially on November 17, 2017. Goldman Sachs, Cowen & Company and Evercore ISI are the joint bookrunners on the deal. No pricing terms were disclosed.

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Oviva has been awarded the prestigious Diabetes UK conference award for outstanding contribution to the evaluation of education and self-management in diabetes care.

Selected as first out of hundreds of submissions from across the country, this demonstrates the transformational potential of digital solutions in improving health outcomes within the NHS.

The Oviva Diabetes Support programme provides people with type 2 diabetes remote, specialist care from a dietitian over the telephone or using a smartphone app, as well as access to an online learning portal to learn more about their condition. This has been shown to help people with type 2 diabetes improve their health and in turn, supports the NHS to save costs over the longer-term due to a reduction in preventable complication rates and medication needs, reducing pressure on stretched NHS resources.

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London, UK — Orchard Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to transforming the lives of patients with rare disorders through innovative gene therapies, today announced two key additions to its executive leadership team, appointing Jason Meyenburg as chief commercial officer and John Ilett as general counsel & company secretary.

Mark Rothera, Orchard’s CEO, stated: “I am delighted to welcome Jason and John to Orchard’s executive leadership team. We are making great strides toward building a leading, global, fully-integrated company bringing transformative gene therapies to patients. Both Jason and John’s skills and experience will be essential in delivering Orchard’s vision, especially as we prepare for potential commercialization of our lead program as early as 2019.”

Chief commercial officer Jason Meyenburg brings extensive global commercialization experience to Orchard including the launch of multiple therapies for ultra-rare life-threatening diseases, new market entry strategies, market access and organizational development. He joins the company to lead the global commercialization of gene therapies for primary immune deficiencies and inherited metabolic disorders. Orchard anticipates submitting a biological license application for its lead program OTL-101 for ADA-SCID (adenosine deaminase severe combined immunodeficiency) in 2018.

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Unum Therapeutics (UNUM) is planning to raise $75 million in an initial public offering on Thursday, March 29th, IPO Scoop reports. The company will issue 5,800,000 shares at a price of $12.00-$14.00 per share.

In the last twelve months, Unum Therapeutics generated $8.4 million in revenue and had a net loss of $25.6 million. Unum Therapeutics has a market-cap of $384.6 million.

Morgan Stanley and Cowen served as the underwriters for the IPO and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey and Wedbush Securities were co-managers.

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Surface Oncology, an immuno-oncology company developing next-generation antibody therapies that target the tumor microenvironment, today announced that the first patient was treated in its Phase I trial of SRF231, the company’s lead product candidate. SRF231 is a fully human antibody that inhibits the activity of CD47, a protein overexpressed on many types of cancer cells which prevents them from being engulfed and eliminated by macrophages.

“The initiation of this clinical trial is a milestone for Surface and demonstrates the outstanding progress we’ve made in advancing our innovative oncology pipeline,” said Rob Ross, M.D., chief medical officer of Surface Oncology. “SRF231 is the first of what we expect will be multiple novel agents that we bring into clinical development to help patients suffering from cancer.”

Initially, this multi-center, open-label Phase I trial will evaluate the safety and tolerability of SRF231 in multiple ascending doses in patients with advanced solid tumors and hematologic malignancies with the objective of establishing a recommended dose for further study. Following the dose escalation component of the trial, Surface intends to evaluate the safety and efficacy of SRF231 in cohorts of patients with specific types of cancer.

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BOULDER, Colo. — Biodesix, Inc. (Boulder, CO, USA), a molecular diagnostics company has entered into a biomarker research collaboration with Checkmate Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel approaches for cancer immunotherapy.

The collaboration will focus on the analysis of the circulating proteome of advanced melanoma patients treated with CMP-001 in combination with pembrolizumab, utilizing Biodesix’s proprietary Diagnostic Cortex® artificial intelligence-based biomarker discovery platform.1 The platform enables the development of clinically-relevant proteomic liquid biopsy tests. CMP-001 is a first-in-class CpG-A oligonucleotide that activates the innate immune system via Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9). The combination therapy with pembrolizumab has the potential to improve the response rate of cancer patients receiving checkpoint inhibitor therapies and to increase the magnitude and duration of the patients’ anti-tumor responses, providing added clinical benefit. A serum-based diagnostic test, if found to be associated with a favorable response to CMP-001, could prove to be clinically useful for identifying patients more likely to benefit from the combination therapy.

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SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Denali Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:DNLI), a biopharmaceutical company developing a broad portfolio of therapeutic candidates for neurodegenerative diseases, today announced that it has commenced dosing of its small molecule inhibitor of RIPK1 in a Phase 1 clinical trial in healthy volunteers and achieved proof of concept of its large molecule blood-brain barrier delivery platform technology in nonhuman primates. In addition, the Company reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2017 and appointed Peter Klein to the Board of Directors.

“The recent clinical progress with our RIPK1 inhibitor and LRRK2 inhibitor programs, along with achieving proof of concept for our blood-brain barrier delivery platform for biologics in nonhuman primates, are important milestones towards our goal of developing medicines for patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases,” said Ryan Watts, Ph.D., CEO. “Furthermore, we are very excited about initiating our collaboration with Takeda, which has allowed us to expand efforts on our blood-brain barrier delivery technology platform.”

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In a fashionable fitted blazer, Rachel Haurwitz looks the part of a polished executive when she meets me in the largest conference room of her company, Caribou Biosciences. She’s sharp and tactical as she speaks, even though it was just a few years ago that Haurwitz traded her lab coat for a tailored suit and stepped up to lead a staff of 46 as Caribou’s CEO. And while the company’s Berkeley, California, office has the unassuming look of most Bay Area startups — open floor plan with scattered desks, swivel chairs and the mandatory Ping-Pong table — tucked away in back is a bright white laboratory where Haurwitz, 32, and her team are using CRISPR, a first-of-its-kind gene editor, to revolutionize food and medicine.

To date, research on CRISPR has focused on treating disease: Clinical trials in China have used the gene editor to fight cancer cells, labs in the U.S. will soon begin doing the same and there’s hope that it will eventually cure rare genetic diseases like Huntington’s. But Haurwitz believes that CRISPR can and should be mobilized to meet challenges beyond the human health field — to include agriculture and industrial biology — and she built her company around that objective. “Any market with bio-based products will be changed by gene editing,” Haurwitz tells OZY.

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