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The SPAC train has slowed down since the extraordinarily high levels from late 2020 into early this year, but Tuesday saw the filing of a new blank-check company targeting the life sciences industry.

JATT Acquisition submitted its SEC paperwork Tuesday, penciling in an estimated raise of $120 million as it sets its sights on a reverse merger partner. The SPAC is run by Someit Sidhu, a co-founder of Pathios Therapeutics, as well as CEO of Akaza Bioscience and Izana Bioscience. Sidhu will control about 97% of the blank-check company’s shares, per the S-1.

Harith Rajagopalan compared the way type 2 diabetes is managed to sticking your fingers in a dam that’s leaking from a number of places.

You can take drugs to lower your blood sugar, cholesterol, or blood pressure, but you’re not addressing what he says is the core issue — the metabolic abnormality that causes the disease.

“We’re so busy plugging the holes in the dam, we don’t have time to see that the whole infrastructure is at risk,” he said. “That infrastructure is a full-body systemic metabolic abnormality called metabolic syndrome, that we’re ignoring while we’re so busy trying to treat all of the individual symptoms of the condition.”

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A flurry of biotechs are expected to hit Nasdaq this week, with two companies, Ambrx Biopharma and Century Therapeutics, setting the terms for their public debuts, with expected raises at $126 million and $200 million, respectively. Alzamend Neuro is also joining in with a $12.5 million raise and two preclinical Alzheimer’s treatments in tow.

Forbion laid out its case for a next-generation gene therapy approach when it took the wraps off VectorY Therapeutics and its vectorized antibody tech in February. Now, the Dutch VC has tapped an experienced hand at cell and gene therapy manufacturing to steer the ship — and pulled a marquee syndicate for a €31 million ($37.6 million) seed round.

Alexander Vos, the new CEO, is a venture partner at BioGeneration Ventures and jumps immediately from VarmX, a BGV portfolio company developing an anticoagulant. But before that, he had led Dutch CDMO PharmaCell for eight years until it was bought out by Lonza.

Perhaps they should have called it RaiseBio.

Not even a full year post-launch, RayzeBio’s radiopharmaceuticals platform has hooked yet another $100 million-plus raise, and it appears the company’s next big catch will be a Nasdaq ticker.

CEO Ken Song unveiled the Series C round Tuesday morning, bringing the fledgling biotech’s total raise to $258 million. While he was hesitant to call it a crossover round, he said it very well could be RayzeBio’s last private round of financing.

Umoja Biopharma has scored some bold backers for its grand vision to reshape cancer immunotherapies.

The Seattle-based biotech is tying the bow around a $210 million Series B that features prominent crossover players: SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Cormorant Asset Management, RTW Investments, Temasek, Presight Capital, Caas Capital, and an investment fund associated with SVB Leerink. Execs declined an interview, a move that fits into an increasingly common playbook pointing to an IPO next.

You’ve heard of mRNA, largely thanks to the Covid-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. If you watch the R&D space closely, you’ve also probably heard of oRNA and eRNA.

Now, a new biotech out of Rick Young’s Whitehead Institute lab at MIT wants to introduce you to regulatory RNA, or regRNA.

The company is Camp4 Therapeutics, and it’s locked down its first fundraise with a $45 million Series A on Tuesday. Led by CEO Josh Mandel-Brehm, Camp4 wants to create oligonucleotide-based medicines that control protein expression to help regulate any kind of genetic disease.

For more than 10 years, Thomas Baumert has been carefully studying a protein called Claudin-1 (CLDN1) for its role in fibrosis. Now, hot off a $67 million raise, he’s racing to the clinic with a monoclonal antibody he hopes can reverse kidney and liver disease.

Alentis Therapeutics, a biotech cross-bred in France and Switzerland, unveiled a Series B round early Tuesday morning that it will use to advance its lead candidate ALE.F02 into the clinic at the end of this year. The company launched in 2019 with a $13.2 million round led by two Swiss VC funds, BioMedPartners and BB Pureos Bioventures.