A neoantigen pioneer says its tech is working great. So what wrecked the share price?

Andrew Allen, Gritstone Oncology CEO

July 14, 2020 07:05 AM EDT

A neoantigen pioneer says its tech is working great. So what wrecked the share price?

Gritstone Oncology was one of the original neoantigen upstarts, raising cash and planning to disrupt the immuno-oncology field with a bold new approach to fighting cancer with a new brand of vaccines.

On Monday, the crew in charge ran out a full display of what they’ve been seeing in a Phase I study. And everything seems to be working perfectly with one big exception: It didn’t significantly shrink tumors, let alone eradicate them.

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July 24, 2021 06:00 AM EDT

Weekly

Novartis reshuffles its wild cards; Tough sell for Biogen? Googling proteins; Ken Frazier's new gig; and more

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

If you enjoy the People section in this report, you may also want to check out Peer Review, my colleagues Alex Hoffman and Kathy Wong’s comprehensive compilation of comings and goings in biopharma.

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Demis Hassabis, DeepMind CEO (Qianlong/Imaginechina via AP Images)

July 23, 2021 11:15 AM EDT

Discovery

Google's DeepMind opens its protein database to science — potentially cracking drug R&D wide open

Jason Mast

Editor

Nearly a year ago, Google’s AI outfit DeepMind announced they had cracked one of the oldest problems in biology: predicting a protein’s structure from its sequence alone. Now they’ve turned that software on nearly every human protein and hundreds of thousands of additional proteins from organisms important to medical research, such as fruit flies, mice and malaria parasite.

The new database of roughly 350,000 protein sequences and structures represents a potentially monumental achievement for the life sciences, one that could hasten new biological insights and the development of new drugs. DeepMind said it will be free and accessible to all researchers and companies.

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July 21, 2021 07:17 PM EDTUpdated July 23, 03:30 PM

Pharma

Inside Biogen's scramble to sell Aduhelm: Project 'Javelin' and pressure to ID as many patients as possible

Zachary Brennan

Senior Editor

In anticipation of Aduhelm’s approval for Alzheimer’s in June, Biogen employees were directed to identify and guarantee treatment centers would administer the drug through a program called “Javelin,” a senior Biogen employee told Endpoints News.

The program identified about 800 centers for use, he said, and Biogen now pays for the use of bioassays to identify beta amyloid in potential patients having undergone a lumbar puncture procedure, the employee said — and one center preparing to administer the drug confirmed its participation in the bioassay program.

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Director-Regulatory

Icosavax, Inc.

Seattle, WA, USA

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July 23, 2021 06:58 AM EDT

R&D

Pharma

6 top drugmakers offer perspectives on FDA's new covariates in RCTs guidance

Zachary Brennan

Senior Editor

Back in May, the FDA revised and expanded a 2019 draft guidance that spells out how to adjust for covariates in the statistical analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Building on the ICH’s E9 guideline on the statistical principles for clinical trials, the 3-page draft was transformed into an 8-page draft, with more detailed recommendations on linear and nonlinear models to analyze the efficacy endpoints in RCTs.

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Vas Narasimhan, Novartis CEO (Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

July 21, 2021 09:51 AM EDTUpdated July 23, 01:52 PM

R&D

Novartis discards one of its ‘wild card’ drugs after it flops in key study. But it takes one more for the hand

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Always remember just how risky it is to gamble big on small studies.

A little more than 4 years ago, Novartis reportedly put up a package worth up to $1 billion for the dry eye drug ECF843 after a small biotech called Lubris put it through its paces in a tiny study of 40 moderate to severe patients, tracking some statistically significant markers of efficacy.

By last fall, the program had risen up to become one of CEO Vas Narasimhan’s top “wild card” programs in line for a potential breakthrough year in 2021. These drugs were all considered high-risk, high-reward efforts. And in this case, risk won.

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July 23, 2021 09:49 AM EDT

Pharma

FDA+

EMA rejects FDA-approved Parkinson's drug, signs off on Moderna vaccine use in adolescents ahead of FDA

Zachary Brennan

Senior Editor

The European Medicines Agency on Friday rejected Kyowa Kirin’s Parkinson’s disease drug Nouryant (istradefylline), which the US FDA approved in 2019 under the brand name Nourianz.

EMA said it considered that the results of the clinical studies used to support the application “were inconsistent and did not satisfactorily show that Nouryant was effective at reducing the ‘off’ time. Only four out of the eight studies showed a reduction in ‘off’ time, and the effect did not increase with an increased dose of Nouryant.”

Molecular Diagnostics Can Transform Cancer Care. Let’s Make It Happen.

Bonnie H. Anderson

Like so many people around the world, my life has been profoundly shaped by cancer. Those personal experiences, along with a deep love of clinical laboratory science and a passion to apply the power of genomics in medicine, motivated me to launch a company that would improve cancer care through better diagnostics. Thirteen years later, I am proud that we are delivering more accurate information at multiple points along the patient journey, with a focus on eight of the 10 cancers that are most commonly diagnosed in the United States.

ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Director, High-Throughput Screening (HTS) Drug Discovery Group

Pliant Therapeutics

South San Francisco, CA, USA

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July 23, 2021 10:57 AM EDT

News Briefing

Moderna establishes public health-focused charity; FDA approves AstraZeneca diabetes drug for pediatric use

Josh Sullivan

Associate Editor

To help promote public health and healthcare in underserved areas of the world, Moderna will establish a charity with a $50 million endowment.

The Cambridge, MA-based company announced the board of directors’ approval Thursday. The foundation will focus on “charitable, scientific and educational endeavors” with an emphasis on promoting public health and the access to healthcare, the press release said. The foundation will start operations once its status as a 501(c)(3) is approved.

July 23, 2021 10:31 AM EDTUpdated 03:58 PM

Financing

UPDATED: Three biotechs price hefty IPOs just before the weekend, while a fourth and a SPAC seek spots on Wall Street

Nicole DeFeudis

Editor

Editor’s note: Interested in following biopharma’s fast-paced IPO market? You can bookmark our IPO Tracker here.

A handful of biotechs are hitting Wall Street just before the start of the weekend, with three companies — Caribou Biosciences, Sophia Genetics and Absci — all pricing big raises Wednesday and Thursday. Gamma delta T cell-focused IN8bio relaunched its IPO campaign months after postponing it last November, seeking a slightly lower raise. And another SPAC has filed for a public debut.

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