After Novo Nordisk’s acquisition of Corvidia, Ram Aiyar takes the helm at Korro Bio; Silverback gets a new CFO to go along with its IPO

November 13, 2020 07:28 AM ESTUpdated 12:45 PM

After Novo Nordisk's acquisition of Corvidia, Ram Aiyar takes the helm at Korro Bio; Silverback gets a new CFO to go along with its IPO

Alex Hoffman

Assistant Editor

Kathy Wong

Assistant Editor

→ Co-founded by Nessan Bermingham and banking $91.5 million in Series A funding in September, RNA editing startup Korro Bio has tapped Ram Aiyar as their first CEO. Aiyar, who began as a research scientist in the immunology group at Janssen in the late 2000s, co-founded Corvidia Therapeutics in 2016 and was also their CFO and CBO along the way. Back in June, Aiyar helped steer the sale of Corvidia to Novo Nordisk for $2.1 billion, including $725 million upfront. With the deal, Novo Nordisk inserted Corvidia’s IL-6 inhibitor ziltivekimab into their pipeline.

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Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos (via Getty Images)

November 27, 2020 09:56 AM ESTUpdated 01:36 PM

Deals

With aducanumab caught on a cliff, Biogen’s Michel Vounatsos bets billions on another high-risk neuro play

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

With its FDA pitch on the Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab hanging perilously close to disaster, Biogen is rolling the dice on a $3.1 billion deal that brings in commercial rights to one of the other spotlight neuro drugs in late-stage development — after it already failed its first Phase III.

The big biotech has turned to Sage Therapeutics for its latest deal, close to a year after the crushing failure of Sage-217, now dubbed zuranolone, in the MOUNTAIN study.

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Pascal Soriot (AP Images)

November 23, 2020 05:43 AM ESTUpdated 02:00 PM

Coronavirus

AstraZeneca, Oxford on the defensive as skeptics dismiss 70% average efficacy for Covid-19 vaccine

Amber Tong

Editor

On the third straight Monday that the world wakes up to positive vaccine news, AstraZeneca and Oxford are declaring a new Phase III milestone in the fight against the pandemic. Not everyone is convinced they will play a big part, though.

With an average efficacy of 70%, the headline number struck analysts as less impressive than the 95% and 94.5% protection that Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have boasted in the past two weeks, respectively. But the British partners say they have several other bright spots going for their candidate. One of the two dosing regimens tested in Phase III showed a better profile, bringing efficacy up to 90%; the adenovirus vector-based vaccine requires minimal refrigeration, which may mean easier distribution; and AstraZeneca has pledged to sell it at a fraction of the price that the other two vaccine developers are charging.

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Jason Kelly, Ginkgo Bioworks CEO (Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

November 25, 2020 11:48 AM EST

Coronavirus

Manufacturing

After Kodak debacle, US lends $1.1B to a synthetic biology company and their big Covid-19, mRNA plans

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

In mid-August, as Kodak’s $765 million government-backed push into drug manufacturing slowly fell apart in national headlines, Ginkgo Bioworks CEO Jason Kelly got a message from his company’s government liaison: HHS wanted to know if they, too, might want a loan.

The government’s decision to lend Kodak three quarters of a billion dollars raised eyebrows because Kodak had never made drugs before. But Ginkgo, while not a manufacturing company, had spent the last decade refining new ways to produce materials inside cells and building automated facilities across Boston.

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November 25, 2020 11:12 AM EST

Peer Review

Jeffrey Hatfield takes over from Diego Miralles as CEO of Vividion; Dragonfly scores a new exec with COO Alex Lugovskoy

Alex Hoffman

Assistant Editor

Kathy Wong

Assistant Editor

→ San Diego protein degradation startup Vividion Therapeutics has made a change at the top with Jeffrey Hatfield taking the helm as CEO, replacing Diego Miralles six months after Roche forked over $135 million to collaborate with Vividion on their small molecule degraders. Hatfield is chairman of the board at miRagen Therapeutics and previously held the CEO job at Zafgen and Vitae Pharmaceuticals. He also had a series of leadership roles at Bristol Myers Squibb from 1996-2004, including SVP, immunology and virology divisions.

November 24, 2020 08:37 AM EST

Bioregnum

Regulatory

The aducanumab conundrum: The PhIII failed a clear regulatory standard, but no one is certain what that means anymore at the FDA

Eighteen days ago, virtually all of the outside experts on an FDA adcomm got together to mug the agency’s Billy Dunn and the Biogen team when they presented their upbeat assessment on aducanumab. But here we are, more than 2 weeks later, and the ongoing debate over that Alzheimer’s drug’s fate continues unabated.

Instead of simply ruling out any chance of an approval, the logical conclusion based on what we heard during that session, a series of questionable approvals that preceded the controversy over the agency’s recent EUA decisions has come back to haunt the FDA, where the power of precedent is leaving an opening some experts believe can still be exploited by the big biotech.

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John Maraganore, Alnylam CEO (Scott Eisen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

November 23, 2020 08:04 PM ESTUpdated 09:21 AM

Pharma

Regulatory

Alnylam gets the green light from the FDA for drug #3 — and CEO John Maraganore is ready to roll

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Score another early win at the FDA for Alnylam.

The FDA put out word today that the agency has approved its third drug, lumasiran, for primary hyperoxaluria type 1, better known as PH1. The news comes just 4 days after the European Commission took the lead in offering a green light.

An ultra rare genetic condition, Alnylam CEO John Maraganore says there are only some 1,000 to 1,700 patients in the US and Europe at any particular point. The patients, mostly kids, suffer from an overproduction of oxalate in the liver that spurs the development of kidney stones, right through to end stage kidney disease.

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Bob Nelsen (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images)

November 23, 2020 11:52 AM ESTUpdated 02:51 PM

Startups

Bob Nelsen raises $800M and recruits a star-studded board to build the 'Foxconn' of biotech

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

Bob Nelsen spent his pandemic spring in his Seattle home, talking on the phone with Luciana Borio, the scientist who used to run pandemic preparedness on the National Security Council, and fuming with her about the dire state of American manufacturing.

Companies were rushing to develop vaccines and antibodies for the new virus, but even if they succeeded, there was no immediate supply chain or infrastructure to mass-produce them in a way that could make a dent in the outbreak.

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Carl Hansen, AbCellera CEO (University of British Columbia)

November 23, 2020 08:39 AM EST

IPOs

From a pair of Air Jordans to a $200M-plus IPO, Carl Hansen is crafting an overnight R&D fortune fueled by Covid-19

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Back in the summer of 2019, Carl Hansen left his post as a professor at the University of British Columbia to go full time as the CEO at a low-profile antibody shop he had founded called AbCellera.

As biotech CEOs go, even after a fundraise Hansen wasn’t paid a whole heck of a lot. He ended up earning right at $250,000 for the year. His compensation package included a loan — which he later paid back — and a pair of Air Jordan tennis shoes. His newly-hired CFO, Andrew Booth, got a sweeter pay packet than that — which included his own pair of Air Jordans.

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November 23, 2020 07:27 AM EST

Deals

Coronavirus

In final days at Merck, Roger Perlmutter bets big on a little-known Covid-19 treatment

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

Roger Perlmutter is spending his last days at Merck, well, spending.

Two weeks after snapping up the antibody-drug conjugate biotech VelosBio for $2.75 billion, Merck announced today that it had purchased OncoImmune and its experimental Covid-19 drug for $425 million. The drug, known as CD24Fc, appeared to reduce the risk of respiratory failure or death in severe Covid-19 patients by 50% in a 203-person Phase III trial, OncoImmune said in September.

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