Since coming into a massive windfall with its Covid-19 vaccines, Moderna has been looking for ways to expand its mRNA technologies into other promising areas. On Monday, the biotech took its next step toward that goal.

Moderna is partnering with Carisma Therapeutics on a huge slate of “CAR-M” programs to treat cancer, the companies announced Monday morning, promising $45 million upfront and $35 million in equity. Though the amount of milestones was not specified, the biotechs noted Moderna has the option to nominate up to 12 targets for development.

Jason Coloma remembers when Maze Therapeutics was nothing more than a bunch of PowerPoint slides. Several months after revealing exactly what his team of scientists have been up to, the chief executive is now gunning for the clinic with another $190 million in tow — and he says an IPO isn’t entirely out of the question.

“I mean, the good thing is with the financial flexibility that we now have, we’ve done a nice job,” Coloma said when asked about a public debut. “We’ll look at different options, but I think that would even include even staying private or looking at different business development transactions that might be helpful for us to kind of think of different ways to advance our pipeline.”

German drug giant Bayer has looked to reinvent itself in recent years, moving on from its past as a primarily consumer health brand into one built around next-gen therapies. Now, Bayer is taking a flyer on one of the children of CRISPR maven Jennifer Doudna’s hallowed lab working on tiny versions of the gene editing tech.

Bayer will pay $40 million upfront and more than $1 billion in potential downstream milestones for up to five in vivo gene editing candidates from Mammoth Biosciences, a Doudna lab spinout developing ultra-small enzymes for easier packaging and delivery into cells, the partners said Monday.

Nine months after Affinia Therapeutics raised $110 million in a Series B, the biotech has set its eyes on the Nasdaq.

The MA-based preclinical gene therapy biotech, which got $60 million in startup capital from New Enterprise Associates, F-Prime and Atlas in 2019, filed an S-1 with the SEC on Tuesday, announcing initial plans to go public and penciling in a $100 million raise. Affinia plans to list under the ticker $AFTX.

As the CEO of RNA editing startup Korro Bio, Ram Aiyar often gets the same question.

“I get always asked, you know, if you can fix DNA, why bother with RNA?” he told Endpoints News. “And it’s like asking, which child do you prefer — your older one or your younger one?”

But investors are appreciating the difference. More than a year after closing its Series A just shy of the megaround mark, Korro Bio is back in the spotlight with $116 million in fresh cash and a lead candidate — targeting alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, or AATD.