Health and tech ven­ture group Po­laris Part­ners, which counts Alec­tor, Al­ny­lam and Ed­i­tas Med­i­cine as part of its port­fo­lio, is set­ting up its ninth fund, rough­ly two years af­ter it closed Po­laris VI­II with $435 mil­lion in the bank, sur­pass­ing its tar­get by $35 mil­lion.

The Boston-based firm, in an SEC fil­ing, said it in­tends to raise $400 mil­lion for the fund. Po­laris — which rou­tine­ly backs com­pa­nies mold­ed out of the work done in the lab of pro­lif­ic sci­en­tist Bob Langer of MIT  — typ­i­cal­ly in­vests ear­ly, and sticks around till com­pa­nies are in the green. Like its peers at Flag­ship and Third Rock, Po­laris is all about cham­pi­oning the lo­cal biotech scene with a steady flow of start­up cash.

Bob Langer MIT

Just last week, Po­laris par­tic­i­pat­ed in a $76 mil­lion round to back Black­Thorn Ther­a­peu­tics — which is hop­ing to har­ness ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence to de­vel­op pre­ci­sion med­i­cines for neu­robe­hav­ioral dis­or­ders. Ear­li­er this year, Po­laris-backed Lyn­dra raised $60 mil­lion in a round of fresh fund­ing — the com­pa­ny, like dozens of oth­ers be­hind it, traces its roots to Langer’s lab at MIT, and was pro­vid­ed seed mon­ey from Po­laris.

San Fran­cis­co-based biotech Alec­tor, which al­so counts Po­laris as an in­vestor, laid the path for $150 mil­lion IPO in Jan­u­ary as it de­vel­ops a crop of drugs de­signed to weaponize the im­mune sys­tem to fight neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases.

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

Digital therapeutics company Better Therapeutics announced on Thursday that it’s cutting 35% of its staff as it awaits FDA clearance for its first product.

The company, which launched eight years ago, is one of a growing group of companies seeking a digital alternative to traditional medicine. The space saw a record $7.5 billion in investments in 2021, according to Chris Dokomajilar at DealForma, with uses spanning ADHD, PTSD and other indications. However, private insurers have been slow to hop on board.