As­traZeneca wins pri­or­i­ty re­view sched­ule for leukemia drug; Penn gene ther­a­py up­start grabs $9.29M with Fra­zier's help

→ As­traZeneca has won a pri­or­i­ty re­view for its an­ti-CD22 ther­a­py mox­e­tu­momab for hairy cell leukemia. The phar­ma gi­ant can now ex­pect a de­ci­sion on third-line use in the third quar­ter, mark­ing an­oth­er prospec­tive ad­vance for its crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant on­col­o­gy pipeline.

→ With ma­jor help from Fra­zier Health­care Part­ners, a stealthy gene ther­a­py com­pa­ny from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia has se­cured $9.29 mil­lion in in­vest­ment. Gene ther­a­py pi­o­neer James Wil­son co-reg­is­tered the com­pa­ny in 2016, the Philadel­phia In­quir­er notes, but has since been re­placed on the board by Penn med­ical school vice dean Kevin Ma­honey. Kr­ish­na Polu, a for­mer Cy­tomX chief med­ical of­fi­cer who joined Fra­zier as an en­tre­pre­neur in res­i­dence, is the CEO. Sev­er­al Fra­zier ex­ecs, in­clud­ing Patrick Heron and Tadata­ka Tama­da, are al­so on the board.

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